[Report 1944] / Medical Officer of Health, Redcar Borough.

Redcar (England). Borough Council.

Date:: 1944

Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1944] / Medical Officer of Health, Redcar Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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births. In 1944, out of 297 deaths at all ages, 8 were of infants under 1 year of age, 4 in children under 5 years, and 177 were of persons aged 65 years or upwards. Expressing this in another way the average age of those dying in the area of the Old Kirkleatham and Redcar Sanitary Authorities in 1893 was 34 years, in the Redcar Urban District in 1919, 44 years ; and in the Redcar Borough in 1944, 61 years. One cannot conclude that in 50 years the span of life in the area has been lengthened by 27 years ; in the earlier periods there was a larger proportion of infants and children and a smaller proportion of old people. The altered incidence of death is partly the cause and partly the result of the changed age-constitution of the population. Death has not only changed the age at which it strikes; it has changed its weapons correspondingly. In 1900 there were 10 deaths in young children from the acute infections and diarrhoea; in 1944 there were, while the general population had trebled, 5 deaths from the acute infections and none from diarrhoea. Among notifiable infectious diseases during the year measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria were all prevalent in the borough. Seventy-three cases of scarlet fever were notified, thirty-seven of them in the four months February to Mav. Isolation at home is recommended in this disease unless there are special circumstances, such as insufficient accommodation, or the danger of infecting milk-supply. Fifty- three cases were removed to the Joint Isolation Hospital and twenty remained at home. This disease is now usually one of the least dangerous of the infections, and, for those cases removed to hospital and treated with scarlet fever antitoxin, an isolation period of two weeks is usually found sufficient. Sixty-six cases of diphtheria were notified but in four the diagnosis was not confirmed after removal to hospital and bacteriological examination. This is the greatest number of cases in the borough since 1934 when there were 83. Twenty-six of the cases were over 15 years of age and thirty-six below that age. Of the children underl5 years of age affected with diphtheria sixteen had received at some time prior to twelve weeks before the onset of the disease a full course of immunisation (i.e. the two standard injections) : all recovered. Of the twenty children who had not been immunised three died. There were 57 cases in which schools might have been implicated in the infection, by the attendance there either of the patient or of some school child from the house ; in 20 of these the West Dyke School was affected, in 18 the Warwick Road School (to which children from the West Dyke School usually move on attaining a certain age), and in 19 instances 8 other schools figured, with from one case to four. In May 1944 all the schools* in the borough were visited in the course of an endeavour to secure more immunisation and it was found that the West Dyke (particularly the Infants’ Department) and the Warwick Road Schools had the lowest proportion of immunised children. The Dormanstown Schools, where, in the Infants’ 83% were immunised, and in the Juniors’ 70%, had only one case of diphtheria. When it was apparent that the West Dyke and Warwick Road Schools were principally affected these were visited to attempt to discover carriers and some throat-swabs were taken. The numbers immunised in this and adjoining districts during 1944 are given in the following table ; in this borough 437 received a full course of immunisation during 1944. As the number of children born in 1943, who would, in 1944, reach an age at which they should be protected by immunisation, was 397, it may be inferred that the percentage of children immunised has very slightly increased.