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38 Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
Known cases of Measles were visited at once in order to
impress on parents the need for proper treatment, and where
urgent treatment, such as nursing or admission to Hospital,
was found to be required, this was arranged for without delay.
The services of the temporary officers were utilised where
they were most required at the moment and they were employed
on Measles visiting only. The permanent Health Visitors also
gave a proportion of their time to assisting with the Measles
visiting. Re-visits were made to many of the houses at short
intervals to see if existing cases had developed complications,
or if suspected ones had contracted the disease. In some cases,
when Measles was prevalent in a district, neighbouring houses
were visited to see if any of the inmates were suffering from the
disease.
The biennial epidemic of Measles occurs every other winter
and lasts for nine months or less. It commences, as a rule, a
few weeks before Christmas, as shown by an increase in the
number of cases reported during the months of November
and December. The incidence increases during the early months
of the new year, reaches its maximum in March or April, and
by the end of July, sometimes earlier, the epidemic is at an
end. During the following fifteen months, the number of cases
reported is small.
As each Measles epidemic lasting about nine months commences
at the end of one calendar year, and extends into the
next, an enumeration of the cases and deaths occurring in
successive calendar years fails to show the extent of an epidemic.
In order to do this it is necessary to choose a twelve months
period which will include all the months covered by the epidemic.
The most suitable period for this purposes is the year commencing
on 1st October and ending on the 30th September.
The number of cases of Measles brought to my notice
between 1st October, 1927 and 30th September, 1928 was 4,596.
The majority of these cases were reported by the elementary
schools, and at arriving at this figure several hundred cases,
which proved after investigation not to be suffering from
Measles, are excluded; 4,566 of these cases were reported in