[Report 1955] / School Medical Officer of Health, Exeter.

  • Exeter (England). City Council.
Date:
1955
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1955] / School Medical Officer of Health, Exeter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    attending a nearby infant school (a few hundred yards away) fell ill in the evening with similar symptoms. One vomited a few times and the other passed a few loose motions. Next day both were back to normal ; there were no other children at the time in the school affected by either vomiting or diarrhoea. Each of these two children had a younger brother attending the nursery, who was not affected by the illness but, presumably, acted as a symptomless carrier in taking the infection home to the older child. 2. Outbreak in a Junior School. This was a large outbreak occurring in June, 1955, in a junior mixed school of 300 pupils of ages between 7 and 11 years. In all, 78 children, 2 teachers and 3 of the kitchen staff were affected. The onset was explosive in character with 31 cases occurring on the first day, Wednesday, 8th June, and new cases developed during the two succeeding days. The Medical Officer of Health (Dr. E. D. Irvine) was called to the school on 10th June and carried out the initial investigations. After the school closed for the weekend on the Friday there was only one new case on Saturday morning and none after the school reassembled on the Monday. The children affected were dispersed throughout the school. Even on the first morning, when only 8 children were affected, 5 classes were involved. The worst hit classes were the top two in which nearly half of the children were affected during the three days. (See Table II). Nausea or vomiting was the presenting symptom in 62 of the cases. In 17 children this was followed by diarrhoea and in 5 children diarrhoea was the only symptom. Abdominal dis- comfort was common and in 5 children was the only symptom. 25 children complained of headache, 5 of them suffering nothing else. None of the children complained of giddiness. The dura- tion of symptoms was short, usually only a few hours. Except for those children who had diarrhoea following the nausea or vomiting all were back to normal the next day. The symptoms in most of the diarrhoeal cases lasted under 24 hours. None of the children was much upset and recovery was rapid and complete. (See Table III). The adults were all more severely affected and all felt very ill, one saying that she felt she was going to die. The duration of symptoms tended to be longer than in the children, lasting for 24 to 48 hours, though the period of prostration only lasted a few hours. The two teachers became ill during the afternoon of the first day of the outbreak. In two of the kitchen staff the onset of symptoms was not until the second day of the outbreak and in the other not until the third day. (See Table IV). Twelve secondary cases occurred in the homes of affected children during the outbreak. These are particularly interesting