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15
Section F. PREVALENCE OF, AND CONTROL OVER,
INFECTIOUS AND OTHER DISEASES.
Scarlet Fever was prevalent throughout the year, but the disease
maintained its mild character and caused no deaths. It is now
generally accepted that Scarlet Fever is but one manifestation of
infection with a particular germ, a streptococcus, which may cause
various symptoms. Whether a patient has a sore throat with a rash
or tonsillitis without a rash, makes little or 110 difference to his or her
infectivity and consequent danger to the community. It is time,
therefore, to revise our ideas on the hospitalisation of Scarlet Fever, for
to remove a case with a rash to the Isolation Flospital when there are
perhaps other equally infectious cases in the house suffering only from
tonsillitis is clearly a waste of time and public money. Unless we are
prepared to send to hospital all cases of streptococcal infection, a quite
impracticable proposition, the removal or not of a patient should rest
upon his or her individual needs for nursing or special treatment and
the accommodation available at home. There is little doubt that
wherever the patient can have a separate bedroom and be looked after
adequately, home nursing is the best procedure.
If these views are correct, it is plainly irrational to make
notifiable, one particular manifestation only of the disease and it has
been suggested that the term " streptococcal throat" should be used to
cover all cases of sore throat, including those with rash, due to this
germ.
In this district 30 or 40% of the cases of Scarlet Fever notified
during the year were nursed at home and in none did a second case of
the disease occur in the same household.
Scabies.
There was a considerable increase in the number of cases of
scabies brought to the notice of the Local Authority. Arrangements
were made to give the necessary baths and treatment at the cleansing
sections of the First Aid Posts in Buckhurst Hill and Loughton.
The most satisfactory routine treatment has been found to be
two applications of benzyl benzoate at one week's interval but it was
repeatedly shown that unless all the members of an infected family
were examined, and treated if necessary, recurrences were frequent.