Poliomyelitis : a survey of the outbreak in Scotland in 1947.

Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Poliomyelitis : a survey of the outbreak in Scotland in 1947. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    excess. of females. The figures have been tested to find whether these excesses were significant, which they have been found not to be. The distribution can be taken as being substantially equal between the sexes. In this respect it differed. from the sex distributions of the poliomyelitis groups, with their relatively large numbers of male cases, particularly at ages under 15. (c) Sex, age, type and outcome of illness. At first glance, there was a suggestive association between male sex and death: in cases of poliomyelitis with paralysis, the fatality rate in males was 12-52 per cent., whereas in females the rate was 9°65 per cent. Since this difference might be only the result of uneven incidences at different ages, the differences in each age group were examined separately. (In this computation, ages 10-14 and 15-19 had to be added together because of a small expectation in one cell.) It was found that there was a significantly high fatality rate in males at ages under 5, compared with females in the same age group. Other differences were trivial, and the distribution as a whole did not show that affected males were more prone to die from paralytic poliomyelitis. | Within the “ not poliomyelitis ’ group, males suffered a slightly higher crude fatality rate. At first glance this slight difference did not appear material, but it must be mentioned that the male fatality rate was significantly high at ages 20 and over, and that this difference was almost enough to outweigh the trivial differences at ages under 20 and to bring the difference, over the whole age distribution, to the verge of significance. The main result of these observations has been to make it appear of little value to retain sex differentiation in later tables ; accordingly, unless for some special reason, sex has been omitted as a method of classifying the data. (6. GEO GRAPHY (a) General. As iiieie buts already recorded,} eee ee Regs na Cromarty County and Inverness Burgh had no notified case during the period of high prevalence. Seven Local Authority areas had more than 50 notifications. Most Local Authority areas had considerably less, so much so that the Local Authority could not be used as the geographical unit in this survey. Geographical subdivision of Scotland has been made into four parts—(i) Glasgow, (11) the other three Cities, (iii) the 20 other Large Burghs and (iv) the Counties (excluding Large Burghs). Whatever its defects, this classification gives a gradient of urbanisation within Scotland. Some observations having been made on sex distributions in the first survey, sex differentiation was retained in the construction of ‘Tables 7-10 which contain the basic information. (b) Geography and type of illness. The following table, abstracted from Tables 7-10, shows some major differences between areas of Scotland, as defined above. TABLE C Per cent. of Total Cases Per cent. of Accepted Cases Area not Accepted as Polio not Paralytic Glasgow. ... Pe 42+] 19-0 oe ties ce 40°7 23°3 20 Burghs a 26°74 25°7 Counties ... bs 21-0 26-0 Scotland ... eas 31+2 . 23+9 1 Report of the Department of Health for Scotland for the Year 1947; p. 24.