Diarrhoea and enteritis amongst infants in the London area, 1930–8

Abstract

The present inquiry was undertaken to obtain some indication of the relative frequencies of deaths amongst infants from the various forms of diarrhoea and enteritis—‘neonatal’, ‘parenteral’ and ‘infectious’—in the Greater London area in the decade before the war. Since much of the material needed for such an analysis was not available in the published records, a sampling inquiry, making use of the more elaborate records maintained by the Medical Officer of Health, was undertaken for the Borough of Willesden. A comparison of the relevant epidemiological and social conditions in this borough with those in the Greater London area as a whole showed, that for such a purpose, it might properly be regarded as a representative sample.There was little evidence for the occurrence of the neonatal form in Willesden during the period studied, nor did the seasonal distribution of the deaths suggest that many took place in consequence of preceding parenteral infections. On the other hand, there did seem to be some evidence that a significant proportion of these deaths were in some degree associated with one another, in time or place or both, and it is suggested that this distribution might have resulted from the widespread dissemination in the community of one or more strains of some common micro-organism of relatively low virulence for all but the infant population.A less detailed study of data for other London boroughs, viz., Bermondsey, Croydon, East Ham, Tottenham and West Ham, supported the main conclusion reached from the Willesden records.