[Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough.

  • Darlington (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    coinslimplioii stricken. The consumption rate for this year is one-lifth less than for last year, and if it were reduced at this rate every year phthisis would in fifty years be an extinct disease, and our descendants would look upon a case of it as we now look upon a case of leprosy in these islands., I see no reason why at the end of the century upon which we are about to enter, phthisis, like leprosy, should not be abolished. As I have said in a former report, I do not think that notification of this disease will help at all to eradicate it, but a knowledge of how to prevent it and the spreading and inculcating that knowledge among all ages and classes of the com- munity will. It is by letting the healthy light of science into people’s minds that they may understand and know that by letting the fresh air and sunshine into their homes they will succeed in saving themselves from this doom. This must be our bulwark of defence against phthisis in the future. NOTIFICATION OK INFECTIOUS DISEASES. During the year there were .305 cases of infectious diseases notified, or an increase of ‘203 cases on the proceeding year. The increase was due entirely to the prevalence of scarlatina, of which disease 221 more cases were reported than in 1898. The scarlatina epidemic increased so much in the month of November that I advised the Sanitary Committee to close the Elementary Schools of the town. This step on [he part of the Authority had a very noticable effect in diminishing the number of scarlatina cases notified about a fortnight after its adoption. None of the other infectious diseases prevailed to any marked degree, and enteric fever cases were below the average and below my expectation. From the large number of cases of diarrhoea that occurred between the middle of July and September, I e.xpected a con- siderable number of cases of enteric fever in autumn, as one finds that these two diseases usually run together. The number of cases of erysipilas reported was almost as great as the enteric cases. This disease a good many Sanitary Authorities omit from their list of notifiable infectious diseases, and I have never discovered any advantage it has been to the Darlington Corporation to have it, unless it may be con- sidered a luxury. So far as I have ever known in this town it has only occurred in certain isolated cases, and has not assumed the e[)idemic form. This, I think, would have been its course if left to itself unvisited either by the Inspector or Medical Officer. FEVER HOSPITAL. During the year 243 cases were admitted into the Isolation Hospital. The following were the numbers of each disease admitted ;—Scarlatina 199, diphtheria 10, enteric fever 30, varicella 1, meningitis 1, general tuberculosis 1, rheumatism 1. There were 19 cases of the aforementioned 119 sent in from the Rural District, and all the cases from the Rural District recovered, which leaves 180 cases admitted from the Borough, with 7 deaths, or a mortality of 3-8 per cent. Of the total number of cases of scarlatina reported, about 70 per cent, were treated in the Hospital, as 1 have said with a 3-8 per cent, mortality, or including the rural cases 3-5 per cent. Of the remaining 30 per cent, treated at their own homes 4-4 per cent. died. There