[Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley County Borough.

  • Barnsley (England : Unitary authority). County Borough Council.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Scarlet Fever Enteric Fever Diphtheria Of Scarlet Fever 72 cases only were notified, as compared with 170 in 1912, and a 10 years’ average of 179 cases. This figure is somewhat of a surprise to me, because it seemed likely in 1912 that we had an increasing susceptible population liable to Scarlet Fever, and that the number of cases was likely to increase during 1913 to somewhere between 200 and 300 cases. Further, the small number of cases in Barnsley is the more surprising in that there have been widespread epidemics in neighbouring districts which use the Kendray Hospital, and, incidentally, use Barnsley also as a market town, and in these districts the overlooked case was a very serious factor in the epidemics, as was shown by the number of children who were sent to the Kendray Hospital in the later stages of the disease, so that it is somewhat hard to understand why Barnsley was fortunate enough to escape. Perhaps the high percentage of cases isolated in the Kendray Hospital from Barnsley has something to do with this diminished prevalence. In Barnsley, at all events, the Kendray Hospital is not on the whole unpopular, and I think there is very little intentional concealment of the disease. Typhoid Fever again showed a satisfactory diminution in the number of cases notified, the figures falling from 29 cases in 1912 to 14 in 1913. The cool Autumn weather may have had something to do with this, although the number of Diarrhoea deaths led me to expect that there might be also a serious amount of Typhoid Fever in the autumn. During the past 10 years the high Diarrhoea death rate in August and September has nearly always corresponded with a high prevalence of Typhoid Fever in October and November. I sincerely hope that your efforts in the reduction of Privy Ashpits in Barnsley is also a considerable factor in this diminution. If the experience of other towns is anything to go by, the diminished number of Privy Ashpits has always been followed by a diminution in the amount of Typhoid Fever, and I hope that in coming years there will be even more satisfactory reports to make in this matter than even in the present year. Once more there was an increase in the amount of Diphtheria cases notified during 1913, and for the first time since the Notification Acts came into force in Barnsley more cases of Diphtheria were notified than cases of Scarlet Fever. As compared with 10 years ago, the attack rate per thousand persons living has slightly increased, but the virulence of the