[Report 1907] / Medical Officer of Health, Weymouth & Melcombe Regis Borough.

  • Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1907] / Medical Officer of Health, Weymouth & Melcombe Regis Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in feeding, etc., from ignorance, the advent of a Health Visitor, who, where necessary, could give practical instruction to such Mothers, should have some effect. All cases of death from Diarrhoeal Diseases were personally investigated. In each case the feeding was artificial, and in each case, good could have been done had special knowledge been obtainable by the Mother. When bottles with long rubber tubes are used, and imperfectly cleaned, with milk stored either in a scullery or kitchen, exposed to contamination by flies (and in one case with the milk kept always in a bedroom where three adults besides an infant slept), it is no wonder that the delicate stomachs of little children go wrong and death results ; to which may be added the addition of preservatives to milk, so unnecessary, if proper precautions were taken by the Dairyman. INFECTIOUS DISEASES (NOTIFIABLE). The Returns furnished to me under this Act shew that the number of cases of Infectious diseases notified during 1907 was :— Diphtheria 24, Erysipelas 8, Scarlet Fever 34, Enteric Fever 3, Phthisis Pulmonalis 3—Total 72, as compared with 90 in 1906. The above is the number of supposed cases of infectious disease. Further observation in a certain proportion of these have led to a revision in the diagnosis, and in some few cases to a withdrawal of the notification. Four cases were officially withdrawn, viz. : 1 Diphtheria, 3 Scarlet Fever, while some 9 others—5 Diphtheria and 4 Scarlet Fever—proved not to be the disease notified. The official number, however, as returned week by week to the Local Government Board is 68, Weymouth being responsible for 41, Melcombe Regis 27. This is equal to a rate of 2*9 per 1,000 of the estimated population, or excluding Phthisis for purposes of comparison with former years 2*7. The following tables give the notifications for each month and the rates for the last ten years.
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