[Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, Burton-upon-Trent County Borough.

  • Burton upon Trent (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1904] / Medical Officer of Health, Burton-upon-Trent County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/78 (page 41)
    ERYSIPELAS.—Fifty-five cases of this disease were notified during the year. Notification is required under the Infectious Disease Notification Act, but such a proceeding has very little effect on the prevalence of the disease. PUERPERAL FEVER.—Five cases were notified during the year. It seems probable that the better regulation of midwives and tlieir work under the Midwives Act will in a short time accomplish a considerable reduction in the number of cases of this disease throughout the country. MEASLES AND WHOOPING COUGH. — Severe epidemics of both these diseases occun’ed during the year. Whooping cough began to be prevalent in May, and soon spread all over the town, so that practically all the schools were more or less affected. It was felt that the closure of one or two schools, or the infant departments of one or two schools, would be of little use in checking the disease, but as the summer holidays were approaching, advantage was taken of this to advise the closure of all the infant departments in the Borough ten days before the regular time of closing, this giving a total closure of nearly five weeks. When the schools re-assembled a gi'eat improvement was manifest, although the disease still lingered more or less until the end of the year. In all, 480 cases were notified by the Secretary to the Education Committee, Mr. Graham. Measles was px-esent to a serious extent in Wellington Street anti district for nearly a month before it was known to the Health Department. As measles had previoixsly been a notifiable disease in Burton, it had been customary for the Health Office to ixotify the cases to the Education Authority,, but when notification ceased, the Health Department had no means of getting to know of the cases except through the Education Committee, and as no instructions had been given to the Education Authority to notify the disease, naturally they did not do so.