[Report 1906] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicestershire / County of Leicester County Council.

  • Leicestershire (England). County Council
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1906] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicestershire / County of Leicester County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/98 page 13
    03 The total number of cases notified was 428, and there were 42 deaths, giving a case fatality of 9'8. This is, as far as I can ascer¬ tain, the lowest case fatality ever recorded. The cases notified last year were 236, and the case fatality 18'5; in 1904, 226 cases, case fatality 15'0. In the Urban Districts the case fatality was only 7'3, and in the Rural Districts 10’8. The Diphtheria Death rate for the whole County was 0*17 as against O'18 last year; whilst the rate for Rural England and Wales, was O'16. The chief outbreak in the Urban Districts was, as last year, at Wigston. The disease there was of a very mild type, and in no instance did it prove fatal. The cases were fairly uniformly dis¬ tributed throughout the district, and kept cropping up during the year. The endemic tendency of this disease was the subject of a special report last year, and as a result of this report a house to house inspection was ordered, and a great deal of insanitation recti¬ fied. At Melton Mowbray 26 cases were notified, which were essen¬ tially sporadic, the notifications being distributed over eleven months of the year. The infection did not appear to be materially asso¬ ciated with school attendance or any special locality. The Medical Officer of Health strongly recommends the District Council to provide for the systematical bacteriological examination of sus¬ pected cases of Diphtheria. At Shepshed one case was notified, which is the first since 1902. At Coalville a considerable outbreak occurred, chiefly in the Whitwick area. Simultaneously with the first case or two notified there occurred a large number of anomalous sore throats amongst school children attending the Whitwick National and Holy Cross Schools. For this reason these schools were closed for about a month. The cases notified numbered 39, and the deaths 7 ; most of the cases, however, were of a mild character, and in most in¬ stances anti-diphtheritic serum was used. The most severe epidemic in the County was, however, at Fleckney, in the Market Harborough Rural District. This was a continuance of the epidemic which began in September, 1905, and was not completely stamped out until October, 1906. One hundred and twenty-four cases were notified and 7 proved fatal. The disease was originally imported, and unfortunately Fleckney was not in a
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