[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell,

  • Camberwell (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell,. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was 728, but 19 were subsequently sent home as not suffering from diphtheria. The return cases numbered 6. (A return case is defined as one which occurs within 28 days after the release of the original case from isolation.) To avoid the possibility of return eases occurring, the women Inspectors visited the homes of the patients who were discharged from the hospitals and strongly advised that the patient should have a separate bedroom for a few days. The attendant was also urged that should any discharge of the nose or ears occur, a doctor's advice and treatment should be immediately obtained. The deaths numbered 23. The following table shows the number of notifications and deaths from this disease during the past 7 years:— Year. Number of Notifications. Number of Deaths. 1921 875 64 1922 821 63 1923 875 72 1924 831 42 1925 934 40 1926 1,063 54 1927 768 23 Diphtheria Carriers. It is a well-known fact that certain individuals harbour diphtheria bacilli in their nose and throat without themselves being ill, but are capable of conveying infection to others by coughing and sneezing. Such persons are known as carriers. The routine swabbing of contacts for the discovery of carrier cases is carried out whenever the spread of this disease in a family is suspected to be due to this cause. A carrier of virulent germs presents a very difficult problem, inasmuch as he is likely to remain a carrier for an indefinite period in spite of isolation and treatment. Under a universal scheme of immunisation he could be ignored, since he would obviously be innocuous to an immuned population, and, in fact, would probably be a blessing in disguise, as he would, by distributing small doses of infection, help to maintain the immunity to the highest point of efficiency. Diphtheria Prevention. It is the duty of the Medical Officer of Health to create, by suitable publicity, a demand for prophylactic measures to prevent diphtheria. The family practitioner has also a definite moral and professional responsibility in the matter of educating his patients in the proved methods for the prevention of this disease. Propaganda along these co-operative lines will stimulate public interest in the question of artificial immunity to diphtheria,
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