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49
Seasonal Incidence of Sickness
New cases of sickness arising in the latter half of 1955 are shown in the following table so
that incidence of sickness can be seen for three full winters. The winter of 1956/7 was
comparatively free from winter epidemics, January was the month when sickness was most
prevalent, although in 1957/8 a second peak occurred in October at the time of the "Asian"
influenza epidemic. During each of the peak periods when new cases numbered more than 250
the number of employees absent in a week reached more than 160, i.e. 12 per cent or one in eight
of the staff were absent owing to sickness.