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Ophthalmia Neonatorum
Inflammation of the eyes in the newborn which in the early part of the
century was responsible for considerable blindness, is nowadays a comparatively
rare event and is much more responsive to modern treatment.
Only eight cases have been notified in the last eleven years, six of which
including the year 1955 were entirely free.
Puerperal Pyrexia
The number of notifications received annually of a rise of temperature
in lying-in women has been high since the time when extensive hospital
facilities for maternity were provided in the district, mainly at the St. Helier
Hospital which caters for a wide area of Metropolitan Surrey.
The number received in 1955 was 160 compared with 270 in the year
before. As explained in previous reports, any rise in temperature of 2°
within two weeks of childbirth is now notifiable under the Regulations,
whatever the cause. A high proportion of these cases are febrile conditions
not directly the result of childbirth and only a limited number are due to
infection of the genital tract. The incidence of puerperal pyrexia based on
the births registered to Carshalton mothers only, which is entirely misleading,
was 200.5 per thousand. The rate based upon the number of related
births, i.e. the total number of births which occurred in the district was 72.2
per thousand. All cases but one were in respect of hospital confinements.
Ninety-five were first pregnancies. There were no deaths.
Food Poisoning
Eight cases infected with salmonella typhimurium organisms were
notified. Two were single cases of young children aged two and five years
respectively, in different families occurring at different times of the year.
A third case was also an isolated one in a child in a local hospital. As not
infrequently happens there were no other associated cases which would help
in identifying the vehicle by which this infection was introduced. Again as
in many other instances in recent years, it was the youngest member of the
family who was affected and the infection probably took place not so much
as a result of a contaminated food, but from contaminated fingers, to which
the very young are very prone.
The remaining five cases were all infants in a children's ward of a
local hospital. Here again there was no explosive outbreak due to eating
a particular food on any one occasion. This small outbreak was due to the
infection of one infant who developed diarrhoea on the 12th April. Three
other children in the same ward developed similar symptoms, six days, nine
days and nine days later respectively. A fourth child, who was symptomless,
was found to have a positive swab for salmonella typhimurium seven days
after the original case when all the ward contacts were bacteriologically investigated.
How the original case came to be infected was not ascertained and
there is no doubt that the other four were secondarily infected from the
first. Complete swabbing of the staff concerned failed to detect any infection
in those in attendance on the children. The possibilities of transmission of
salmonella infection in an infants ward are of course far from negligible.
All infections cleared up, as evidenced by bacteriological examination, in
two to three weeks.
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