[Report 1902] / Medical Officer of Health, Penzance U.D.C. / Borough.

  • Penzance (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1902] / Medical Officer of Health, Penzance U.D.C. / Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [l°] The Elementary Schools of the Borough were closed by your Authority on December roth, for a month, and the Sunday Schools at your suggestion remamed shut for the same period. I do not think the act,on had any discoverable iniluenc , for o-ood. or bad, on the progress of the outbreak. So far as treatment of the cases throughout the outbreak was concerned, I did not rather a good opinion of the value of Diphtheria Antitoxin. I do not desire dogmatise thereon, but think it right to state the fact to add to the general evidence on which elsewhere, I know, a verdict has often been pronounced m its favour The case taken into hospital was “ antitoxmised ” just before adm.ssi . depression of vitality followed, and the case made a lingering recovery. I gathered the opinion that in others thus treated there seemed a special liability to symp om suggesting local paralyses. The best record (viz.—of seven cases without fata i y) belongs to a colleague who did not use it in any case. It is held by others to have markedly and promptly cleaned throats of membrane. The following table shows the age-incidence of cases and deaths. Under i year. 1—5 5 —15 *S~2z 25 5 i_1__ Cases Deaths o o 23 12 54 9 2 o 7 o o o The comparative exemption of infants in the first year of life is marked Many cases were of the greatest severity, especially in the .-5 age period, where the fatality proved high. Scarlatina. 20 cases of Scarlatina were notified during the year, viz.—three in August, six in October eight in November, three in December. As there have been so far nine cases in ’1003, it is probable that we shall have some more. Two cases weie remove to the Cottage Isolation Hospital, and made good recoveries. These cases weie o a mild character, as have, I believe, been all the others. The usua precautionary measures were adopted in all. No deaths took place. School attendance and milk supplies were various. Ages of those affected were: (1—5) 5 5 (5 *5) 3 , (25_g5) 2. Contact was ascertained or reasonably suspected as tie caus the majority of cases. Whooping Cough. From January to July (inclusive) seven deaths from Whooping Cough took place (viz.—four under 1 year of age, three between 1 and 5). Diarrhoea. O deaths from Diarrhoea (all in infants within the first year of life) occurred between August 29th and September 30th. This represents an improvement on the average of the preceding six years (i2'66), and is a pleasing feature 0 t te c ecre mortality for the year.