Memorandum on cerebro-spinal fever / Ministry of Health.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Health.
Date:
1940
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorandum on cerebro-spinal fever / Ministry of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    2/10
    34 Me i are eed! MINISTRY OF HEALTH MEMORANDUM ON CEREBRO-SPINAL FEVER In 1931 the Ministry of Health issued a Report on the Con- trol of Cerebro-Spinal Fever (No. 65 in the series of Reports on Public Health and Medical Subjects) which amplified and replaced the memorandum issued by the Local Government Board in 1918 and was followed in March, 1932, by a memo- randum on the administration of anti-meningococcus serum. In view of the encouraging .results recently obtained by chemotherapy it may now be opportune to issue a short memo- randum briefly summarising the modern views on treatment of the disease. There are also included observations on the epidemiology of cerebro-spinal fever, the part played by the healthy carrier in its spread, the control of contacts, diagnosis, and general measures of prevention. Epidemiology. In England and Wales cerebro-spinal fever prevails chiefly in the late winter and spring, usually reaching a maximum in March or April and continuing with gradually diminishing in- tensity until May or June, but variations in the seasonal incid- ence occur from year to year. There is good ground for the belief that outbreaks of cerebro- spinal fever are an indication and a consequence of widespread acute meningococcal infection of the nasopharynx in the general population. It is true that meningococci can be found in the nasopharynx of a large proportion of normal persons at times when the disease is practically non- existent; during 1931-7, for example, the percentage of such normal “* carriers ’’ in the staff of a London University Institution lay between 6 and 26 per cent. But their meningococci were distinguishable by aggluti- nation tests from those isolated from patients in epidemic times, e.g., in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1930-2. The latter were practically entirely (94 per cent.) of the serological Group I, whereas the former were almost all of Group II. The con- clusion drawn* is that Group II is normally of low pathogeni- city: it can produce meningitis, but as a rule only in highly * Annual Report, Chief Medical Officer, Ministry of Health, 1931, p. 69.