[Report 1898] / Medical Officer of Health, Loughborough Borough.
- Loughborough (England). Borough Council.
- Date:
- 1898
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1898] / Medical Officer of Health, Loughborough Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![which terminated fatally. Each case there was no spread from either. arose independently and ERYSIPELAS. Sixteen cases of this disease were notified, against 38 last year. They were mostly mild cases and of no importance from a sanitary point of view. M A S L E S A rather severe epidemic of this disease occurred, commencing on January 28th with a boy, a boarder at the Grammar School, and, almost simultaneously, with a girl residing in Church Gate, who was a pupil at the Church Gate Infant School. These two cases were isolated as soon as the in#*efcieH nature of the disorder was discovered, but the infection had already S O 1 6 <2 CL I who fell progress who reoo?. through proved tc case to several other children of the School, Fount a week later. I was enabled to watch the ne to e p i g e mi c t n ro ugi f h a kindness of the teachers, a a a child remained be from School , if the disease away i am: made inquiries, and ordered the other children of the away from School, and kept the sick possible. Notwithstanding every e as scon I then crious. ] o remain child isolated as much as precaution, I found that on the 21st February, or about three weeks after the commencement of the epidemic, there were thirty- one authenticated cases of measles, all in eases children attending the Church Gate Infant School, and, as there were a still larger number of children absent from the same School with colds, I was apprehensive that these also would prove to be measles, as this disorder in the first stage has all the characters of a common cold. As the cases were all from one School, in the hope of confining or checking the epidemic, I recommended the closing of Church Gate School, which was done accordingly for four weeks. On the same day I discovered several cases of measles in children attending the Warner School and a week later (February 28) there were 20 children absent through measles from this School. I then issued a Closing Order for this School also. Despite the closing of these Schools, and excluding from other Schools children from houses where the disease existed, the epidemic continued to increase, so that by the end of March the number of cases had increased to 400 and had caused six deaths. About the third week in April it showed signs of abating and, by the end of May, the town was free from measles. The total number of authenticated cases which occurred was 629 and the total number of deaths was 16. The spread of the disease had no relation to sanitation, but simply spread from one to another susceptible child. This disorder is susee infectious from the first on¬ set of the symptons, and the rash does not appear until the fourth day, so that during these four days parents are not aware of the infectious nature of the disorder and allow their children to attend School and mix with other children freely. During the course of this epidemic I issued over 400 Certifi¬ cates of exclusion from school of children residing in infected houses and made about as many visits to Schools and homes with the object of securing as great a degree of isolation as possi¬ ble. In this effort I was intelligently and loyally assisted by the Teachers of the Elementary Schools, the School Attendance Officer and the Sanitary Inspector. During the first portion of the epidemic I was forcibly impressed by two considerations. One was the little effect which school closure had on the pro- <5)-6](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29743023_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
