[Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, East Sussex County Council.
- East Sussex (England). County Council
- Date:
- 1949
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, East Sussex County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![In the case of malaria, although the requirement is only to notify the disease if acquired in this country, the disease is listed because notifications are received from time to time, though the cases are almost certainly nothing more than recurrences of infection con- tracted abroad. A genuine “ indigenous ” case occurs only once in several years in this county, an interesting contrast with the not-so-far-distant days when “ ague ” was one of the trials suffered by our country people, in Sussex as well as elsewhere. Measles increased in numbers from 2,636 last year to 3,506. The number of cases notified, moreover, bears no strict relation to the number of cases occurring, as, in a great many cases, the patient is only slightly ill and may never be seen by a doctor. The same applies to whooping cough and scarlet fever ; also to dysentery (partly because this con- dition is so ill-defined as an entity or group) and food poisoning. Although whooping cough and measles may in some children leave permanent lung damage, their severity in general has been very slight, and it is gratifying to note that among the 4,212 patients recorded as contracting scarlet fever, whooping cough or measles , during the year, only 3 deaths occurred. Scarlet fever has risen from 215 to 341, while whooping cough has dropped from 1,074 last year to 365 this year. While as yet no antigen of a reliability and efficiency comparable with the preparations used for immunisation against diphtheria is yet available for whooping cough, it is very probable that the extensive use made during recent years of proprietary pertussis vaccines has had an appreciable effect in reducing the incidence, and what is more important, the severity of the disease. As there is no morbidity notification we do not know how much residual disability results in the form of chronic bronchitis or bronchiectasis 4 but there can be no doubt that in spite of the better physique and health of the modern child, a substantial amount of impaired health may follow an attack of whooping cough. During the year 48 patients were notified as suffering from acute polio-myelitis (includ- ing four cases of acute polio-encephalitis), of whom 44 were confirmed cases ; there were three deaths, aU of men aged 32, 36 and 37 years. In addition, a man aged 60 and a woman aged 28 who died elsewhere, belonged to the county. As in previous years, a substantia] proportion of the cases were in older patients ; of the 44 cases, only ii were 5 years old 01 less, while 12 were over 20. The oldest was a man of 66, while the average age was 16. TD incidence again tended to be more heavy in the western half of the county (excepting Hove and Portslade), the outbreak starting with seven cases in Newhaven Urban District (popu > lation 7,572), in less than four weeks from 27th May, yet no further case occurred there although Peacehaven and Telscombe Cliffs, immediately to the west, had three cases ir ; July and August. As elsewhere in the country, cases continued to occur, though less and' less often, right up till December. TUBERCULOSIS. i| There were 234 notifications of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1949, of which 148 were ii respect of patients between 15 and 45 years of age. Notifications of other forms of tuber culosis numbered 55, of which 33 were under 15 years of age. The number of notified case; , * on the registers of the district sanitary authorities at the end of the year was 2,053 (1,41‘j ! pulmonary and 638 non-pulmonary). It will be noted that the number of notified pulmonary cases on the registers has riser from 1,354 1948 to 1,415, i.e., the number per 1,000 of the population has risen froir 4.0 to 4.2. This small increase is probably largely due to better ascertainment. The death' : from pulmonary disease, however, have dropped from in in 1948 to 97, which, taking I into account the increased population, shows an appreciable reduction in the mortality rate. An unsatisfactory feature which is noticed year by year is the high proportion 0 persons who have never been notified as suffering from tuberculosis before they die of th( disease. In 1948, of the in deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis, no fewer than 42 (37.8% had not been notified, and of the 13 dying from non-pulmonary disease three (or 23%) hac similarly never been notified. Thus, in 1948, over 36% of all the deaths from tuberculosu were of patients who had not been notified in this area and who in the great majority of caseJ](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29186870_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
