[Report 1908] / Medical Officer of Health, Chorley Borough.

  • Chorley (England). Borough Council
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1908] / Medical Officer of Health, Chorley Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    No case of Smallpox has been reported during the year, and the last outbreak in your Borough was in 1903 and 1902, when forty-two (42) and twenty-five (25) cases occurred in these years respectively. The provision of ten beds at Finnington Hospital for the inhabitants of the district under the Chorley Joint Hospital Board is sufficient for any probable occurrence of the disease, which might at any time be brought into your Borough by tramps. I trust that the continued freedom from this disease will not induce parents and others to abstain from causing their children to be efficiently vaccinated, and that the relatively high percentage of vaccinated children may still obtain in Chorley, Scarlet Fever was reported to me in eighteen (18) instances, the lowest number notified since the adoption by your Council of the Infectious Diseases Notification Act. One (1) case occurred in North and South Wards respectively, and eight (8) in each of East and West Wards. Fifteen (15) cases were removed to the Isolation Hospital, and in three (3) instances sufficient isolation at home or the condition of the patient rendered such action inadvisable. Only one (1) Death occurred from this disease. Diphtheria notifications amounted to fifteen (15), four (4) cases being reported from North, East, and West Wards, and three (3) from East Ward. Two (2) cases were removed to the Isolation Hospital, and the remaining (13) were treated at home. Two (2) Deaths resulted from this disease, giving a mortality of 13 per cent, of the notified cases. Whilst Scarlet Fever has markedly decreased during the last three or four years, there has been an increase, though to a much smaller extent, in the number of notified cases of Diphtheria. Typhoid Fever has been reported to me in ten (10) instances, one (1) from West Ward, two (2) from South Ward, three (3) from North Ward, and four (4) from East Ward. This is a larger number than I had to report to you for the years 1907 and 1906, when five (5) and eight (8) cases were notified in these years respectively, but closely approaches the average number of cases notified since the Water Closet conversion was completed in 1901, viz., 10'8, whilst in the eleven preceding years (1891—1901) the average number of cases notified was 48'5 per annum. Three (3) cases of Typhoid Fever were removed to the Isolation Hospital, and four (4) Deaths or 40 per cent, of the notified cases ended fatally. [12]