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Smallpox.—No cases were notified.
Enteric Fever.—One case of enteric fever due to the bacillus
typhosus was notified in an adult female who was employed in that
part of South Croydon which was at risk during the Typhoid
outbreak in that town in the last months of 1937. She was admitted
to isolation hospital but succumbed to the disease.
The incidence and death rates for this disease were 0.01 per
thousand population.
Dysentery.—During the last two months of the year the district
experienced an unusual prevalence of diarrhoea. A series of cases
were investigated and the dysenteric organism of Sonne was isolated
in each instance. There is no doubt that this unusual incidence
was due to this organism.
Fifty-three notifications of dysentery were received but it is
certain that they represented only the more severe cases of this illness
at a time when this organism was active over a large part of the
London area. The illness on the whole was of short duration and
was not accompanied by dangerous features. It attacked both
sexes and all ages indiscriminately.
There was no evidence to indicate any particular food as the
primary source of this infection but it no doubt owed much of its
persistence to the handling of food by mild ambulatory or incompletely
recovered cases.
Scarlet Fever.—Scarlet Fever of a mild type was again very
prevalent. Two hundred and ninety-four notifications were
received compared with 240 in the year before. Of the total,
275 occurred outside hospitals. The incidence rates were, therefore:—
All cases notified 5.06 per 1,000 population.
Cases excluding Queen Mary's
Hospital 4.73 „ „ „
(England and Wales 2.33 „ „ „ )
Two hundred and sixty-three cases, representing 89 per cent of
the total were removed to isolation hospital. There were no deaths.
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