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.

    8/84 (page 6)
    The imminence of an outbreak in Scotland in 1947 was deduced from rising follow on that further south, but with the smaller population of Scotland it took longer to reveal itself. The notification rate was indeed slightly higher in Scotland than in England and Wales, and for a few weeks during the waxing of the outbreak the rate of increase of weekly notifications was unduly high in Scotland. ‘Taken United Kingdom. It was compounded of local peaks which were not all reached at the same time; Glasgow and Ayrshire led the way; other areas had their so near each other, that the curve for Scotland was smooth. In the previous survey it was possible to include cases notified up to 15th November, 1947, as special arrangements had been made for daily reporting of cases, with information of age and sex, by Medical Officers of Health to the Department. It was then found that the number of notifications in Large Burghs, in the twenty weeks studied, exceeded that in the rest of Scotland: this was consistent with previous experience. ‘The sex incidence was predominantly in males, with some curious irregularities such as an excess of male notifications in earlier age groups, and a deficiency at ages over 25, in the second ten weeks of the period. ‘The peak of age incidence remained in the age group 1-4, being sharper in the first ten weeks than in the second half of the period. ‘The notifica- tions had a higher mean age than those of preceding years, this higher figure being slightly more obvious in Counties than in Cities. It was thought that some more detailed information on each notified case would enable a full account of the outbreak to be compiled ; Medical Officers of Health in Scotland were asked to send a summary card for each notified case in the period Ist June, 1947 to 3rd January, 1948. ‘The prompt agreement of staffs and associates performed in completing the summaries, are acknowledged and highly appreciated. ‘The summary card is reproduced as Appendix I to this survey. ‘The data on each card were coded and transferred to punched cards for tabulation by the Statistical Section of the Department. 2. THE POPULATION SURVEYED (a) Cases. In all, 2,002 cards were included in the survey. This total com- pares with 1,584 notified cases included in the first survey covering twenty weeks in the second half of 1947. Of the 2,002 cases, 1,376 had been accepted as cases of poliomyelitis. (This total does not necessarily tally absolutely with other published figures of notifications in the second half of 1947, as the data underwent continual refinement.) The residual 626 notifications were of patients whose final diagnosis was not poliomyelitis. (5) General. ‘The basic information is given in ‘Tables 4-6. These tables contain firer age grouping than has been necessary in later tables. It is clear from the tables that poliomyelitis remained in 1947, in Scotland, predominantly an “‘infantile ’”’ disease. (c) Incidence rates. Population estimates for mid-1947 having been kindly provided by the Registrar-General (Scotland), incidence rates shown in Table 2 have been calculated. At ages below that of school entry, the incidence rate had progression of incidence with increasing age was smooth. ‘he completeness of the data in the survey may be mentioned here. It 6 Si a sce Sete ceteeee oe EP ee ee ee ee f a Pe a ee ee ee