[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Chiswick].

  • Chiswick (London, England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Chiswick]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    10 Puerperal Fever. One death, two notifications. Erysipelas. Three deaths, 52 notifications. Diarrhœa. This complaint caused 45 deaths. It was as usual most prevalent during August and September, more especially with children under five years of age. Absence of rainfall, with a high temperature of 60 degrees or over, a polluted atmosphere with artificial and injudicious feeding, are the chief causes of this malady. Measles. From this complaint there were 31 deaths. It is not included in the diseases which are required to be notified. It was very prevalent during the first five months of the year, and it is to be regretted that comparatively little care is taken by parents among the poorer classes to prevent the spread of it, con sidering it is as inevitable as teething. It must, however, be allowed that it is difficult to prevent measles from spreading, it being infectious from an early stage, if not from the commencement of an attack. The circumstances in which many of the poor live in this parish and elsewhere, two or more families occupying one house and using a common staircase, almost preclude the possibility of isolation. Again more care might be taken in order to protect the patients against secondary affections of the lungs, etc., which are as a rule the immediate causes ot death. I have no doubt that many lives might be saved if it were practicable to isolate the little
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