Cerebro-Spinal Fever in Glasgow, 1929

Abstract

In 1929, for the third time in the present century, cerebrospinal fever occurred in Glasgow in epidemic form. The first epidemic, which was by far the most severe, was in 1906–8, the total number of cases recorded being 1363. Descriptions of the events of these years were given by Dr A. K. Chalmers (1906) in the Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health of Glasgow for 1906 and 1907, and also in a paper read before the Epidemiological Society. In this outbreak the fatality rate of cases treated in hospital was given as 74·8 per cent. by Currie and Macgregor (1908). The total number of cases admitted to hospital was 910. The incidence of the disease was highest during the months of January to May of 1907, and there was a slight recrudescence in the same months of the following year. The characteristics of the epidemic form of cerebro-spinal fever were present in so far as there occurred several instances of multiple infection in the same house, and a number of cases showed the exanthem peculiar to the disease.