[Report 1933] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicester Borough.

  • Leicester (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1933] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicester Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/240 (page 11)
    time being max upset all one’s calculations, but there has been onlx one epidemic such as that in the past 20 years. The fact that there was only one fatal case is very satisfactory. DIPHTHERIA. Cases, 338. Deaths, 11. (Previous year : Cases, 76. Deaths, 5.) Removed to Hospital, 335. Proportion removed, 99 per cent. The year’s record as regards diphtheria was less satisfactory than in the previous year, when the number of fresh cases was abnormally low, indeed the lowest on record. The position as compared with previous years is shown at a glance in the accompanying Graph IV. It will be observed that after four years of decline, the attack-rate has gone up again to nearly where it was in 1928. Diphtheria is a most elusixv disease, which is endemic rather than epidemic in this country, that is to say, it is continually present in everx large centre of population, and the number of fresh cases occur¬ ring year bv year, whilst there are considerable fluctuations, does not amount, as a rule, to what is usually understood as an epidemic. In Leicester a very definite epidemic did occur in the years 1899-1901, as is shown in the Graph, and during these three years, 3,378 cases were notified and 603 deaths occurred. Nothing at all approaching these figures has occurred during the 33 wars which have since elapsed. During the year under review the disease was not localised or limited to any particular part of the city. A record is kept of all school children attacked : these numbered 20S, and occurred in 45 council and in two private schools. Classifying these, we find that in 23 schools onl\ a single case occurred ; in 21 schools there were from two to five cases ; in two schools (Old Milton Street and St. George’s) there were from elexen to fifteen cases ; in one school (Brunswick Street) there xverc 18 cases ; and in one school (Taylor Street, one of the most recentlx built schools) there xvere 21 cases. The total number of scholars on the books at the schools mentioned is : Old Milton Street ]69, St. George’s 279, Brunswick Street 277, and Taylor Street 77^. There is no doubt that school life, in xvhich large numbers of children are necessarily brought closely into contact, affords an oppor¬ tunity for the spread of infectious disease. This is inevitable exen under the best conditions. But speaking generally, it has onlx rarelx been the case that it has been thought necessary in Leicester to close a school on account of diphtheria.