[Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health, Brentwood U.D.C.

  • Brentwood (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1962
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health, Brentwood U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/34 (page 10)
    (Jastro-enteritis: During the year there were a considerable number of cases of Gastro-enteritis in Brentwood. Once again the epidemiology of the disease is difficult to follow, as it is not notifiable and in any case many of the people affected do not bother to go to their family Doctor. The impression is, however, that school children are the group mainly affected, but many adults went down with the disease, and there were also many family outbreaks. During the greater part of the year the Health Department en- deavoured to investigate every incident reported, and many patho- logical examinations were carried out, involving the staff of this Department in a considerable amount of work. It became apparent, however, as time went on, and as reports came in from further afield, that the cases in Brentwood were simply a part of a much larger problem. Despite the intensive effort put into this work, no causative organism was ever indentified and the method of spread of the disease was never determined. One had to rely on the basic principles of good hygiene and on theoretical concepts of the possible modes of transmission of the disease germ. The failure of the usual methods of controlling diseases spread by faulty toilet hygiene, suggests very ] strongly that this disease may be spread by droplet infection in the ' same way as, for instance, the common cold. This presents an almost insuperable problem in control. Towards the end of the year it became apparent that normal control methods were ineffective and that local facilities should be augmented by the resources of the Ministry of Health and the Public Health I..aboratory Service. As a result of this, I visited the Ministry of Health early in 1963, for consultation with the Principal Medical Officer of the Epidemiological Section. . To sum up the results of this and other discussions, it is apparent that this is a disease of unknown causation. It is only of nuisance value to the older child and the adult, but can be serious in the young baby. In an attempt to discover more about the causative organism and perhaps to develop a method of control, the Public Health Laboratory Service have set up a working party to investigate the whole problem. These investigators have a most difficult task and one cannot be optimistic about their chances of success. We can only hope / that some fact will emerge which will give us a clue on which we can build future preventive measures. Snmll-|M>x: The .sequence of events on a National level during the epidemic of .January, PVbruary, and March, H)62, is well known to you and need not be repeate d here. There was not a great amount of concern locally until a ca.se of Small-i)ox occurred at Woolwich. Within a few day.s of this case on the 29th .January, 1962, another one was diag- noHCfl at Painham and public anxiety (understandably) incrca.sed j sharply. j