HH62/1/DUNBAR/57

Transcription

[Page] 56

two were in one family. In Smithston the fever occurred in
May, and in Croy in October and November.
The seven cases in Cumbernauld village were all in separate
families. We succeeded in persuading the guardians of three of
these to have the patients sent to hospital - one being in the
school-house, another in the lodging-house, and the other in a single
small apartment with seven inmates.
The only legal proceedings that had to be resorted to under the
Public Health Acts were in connection witn Scarlet Fever in
Cumbernauld village. The complaint was the exposure of a child
recovering from the disease, but still in an infectious condition.
The case was a very glaring one, as the exposure was quite wilful,
and carried on in the face of repeated orders to the contrary.
Only a nominal fine was asked by the Local Authority and inflicted
by the Sheriff, the object being rather to prevent other similar
occurrences than to exact a heavy penalty.
Kirkintilloch. - Contemporaneously with the outbreak in Cum-
bernauld in May three cases of scarlatina were certified in the
miners' rows at Twechar, two of them being in one family. These
two were treated at home. The other was sent to hospital. In
August two children were attacked in Waterside village, and one
in Wester Gartshore Row, adjoining the village. The disease did
not extend further through the village.
West Kilpatrick. - In this parish there were ten cases of scarlatina,
four being in Duntocher, two in Faifley, two in Old Kilpatrick,
one in Bowling, and one in Dalmuir. The first was in a house
in Duntocher, where isolation could be maintained. It began on
May 11th. The next, also in Duntocher, on May 23rd, was in
a large tenement of houses, and was removed to Govan Hospital.
The next, on June 17, in Faifley, was also sent to hospital. The
fourth, also in Faifley, was notified on July 1st. It was a baby a
year old, and was treated at home. On July 23rd a case was
certified in Old Kilpatrick. There were no other children in the
house. On September 17th another attack occurred in the same
village. The parents refused to let the patient, a boy aged 5,
be sent to hospital. On 20th September a man in Bowling was
attacked. The next case (15th October) was in the family of a
ploughman connected with a dairy farm. Govan Hospital was
full at the time, but the house was not so connected with the

[Page] 57

farm as to make it necessary to stop the sale of milk. On 4th
November a case was intimated from another farm. Complete
isolation was arranged for. The last was that of a young man
living in Dalmuir, in a house where there were no children. It
was not possible to trace a connection between all these illnesses.
Very likely there may have been a link between some of them.
But until hospital arrangements are completed it will not be pos-
sible to deal in a satisfactory manner with many of the notifications
under the Act.
East Kilpatrick. - In this parish there were ten cases, two of
which were sent to hospital and the rest treated at home. Several
had existed not long before the Notification Act was intro-
duced, and one was in progress on May 1st. One occurred in
Bearsden in the house of a cattle-dealer, who was in the habit of
supplying milk, varying in amount, to a dairyman who disposed
of it in Maryhill. Evidently the first case certified from this
house had not been the first to occur in it, as a girl of eleven
years old had had, three weeks before, a slight illness, which had not
been attended by a doctor nor recognised as scarlet fever, but which
the medical attendant diagnosed as such on being called in to the
second case. About the same time as the first attack some
of the cattle had had on their teats an eruption, of which slight
traces remained - so slight, unfortuately, as to render hopeless any
investigation as to a causal relationship between the bovine and the
human disease. The milk sale was stopped, a note was taken of
the part of Maryhill in which the milk had been sold, and, through
the Medical Officer and Sanitary Inspector of that burgh, inquiry was
made as to any connection between this milk and scarlet fever which
had prevailed in Maryhill. But it turned out that scarlet fever
had been in Maryhill for some time before, and though several
cases existed in the streets in which the milk had been disposed of,
the people in the infected houses could not tell, among the various
dealers whose carts did business in the streets, whether or not
milk had been got from the source under suspicion. It should be
stated that the burn which receives the sewage of the "New Kirk"
Special Drainage District flows immediately behind the cattle-
dealer's house. At the time of the fever the burn was very foul
smelling.

Enteric Fever. - In the District there have been 29 cases of