[Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Godstone R.D.C.

  • Godstone (Surrey, England). Rural District Council.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Godstone R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    55/70 (page 25)
    These two sources seem sufficient to account for the introduction of the illness amongst the children attending the Infant School and to be then propagated and distributed by that influence, so that closing the school proved an effective measure in arresting the further progress of the epidemic. No further cases occurred until September, on the 18th of which the school was re-opened. On the assembling of the children, I attended and care¬ fully examined their throats, in which my partner, Mr. Furber, kindly assisted me, with a view to the rejection of any child we thought not well or who had any symptons of throat-illness, and although scarcely one in ten had a healthy throat, there were none that we could exclude as likely to develope Diphtheria. During the period in which the school was closed, a complete re-construction of the sanitary arrangements was carried out. The old earth closets were removed and a trough system with automatic flushing tank substituted. The well was aban¬ doned and a new supply of water %obtained from the Limpsfield and Oxted Company’s mains, which were extended to the school for the purpose. Cases however, occurred subsequently, but they were apparently unconnected with school attendance, and were for the most part amongst members of families living in close proximity to houses where cases had occurred previously, or who had been brought into close contact with children who had previously suffered during the epidemic, but had apparently recovered. And as the power of infecting others persists in the throat of a sufferer from the disease for a variable period, it is possible these may have contracted their illness in that way. The total number of cases were 56, with 11 deaths, being a mortality of igffi per cent. The sanitary condition of Oxted generally is one which would tend to favour the development of such a disease as diphtheria or its recrudescence after being suppressed by energetic, but temporary measures. There being no system of drainage, the houses are for the most part provided with ordinary privies, which are of a bad type of construction. Being made of wood with vault directly under the floor and seat, they are a source of danger to those using them, and although doubt has been cast upon the general opinion that diphtheria has its origin in such like conditions of offensive excremental accumulations, still these act injuriously upon the health of the community by lowering their vitality and by developing throat illness which would render the subjects of it the more sus¬ ceptible to the infection when presented to them and diminish their power of resistance to its invasion. [25]