WHOOPING COUGH.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20414, 8 December 1931, Page 11

WHOOPING COUGH.

OUTBREAK AT BECKENHAM; In addition to 60 cases of whooping cough in the Shirley district, causing the junior department of the school to be closed, about 50 cases have now been reported from the Beckenham School. The outbreak at Beckenham was not regarded seriously until the middle of last week, but from then onwards, the number of cases grew rapidly. No fresh cases, were reported yesterday. but the headmaster, ! Mr E. S. Lorking, stated 5 ? that it would not yet be safe to say 'that the disease had been checked. It was not intended to close down the school at present. "The disease has come at the most favourable time of the year as far as the young children are concerned, for there is now far less likelihood of the development of complications, such as pneumonia, than there, would be in the winter. I have had no reports of outbreak in any other schools," said the Medical Officer of Health (Dr. T Fletcher Telford) yesterday. . As both the schools concerned are situated near a river, it has been thought 'that, the proximity of marshy ground, which is capable of breeding various forms of disease, may be responsible for the epidemic, but this idea was scouted by Dr. Telford. "It has nothing 'to do with the position," he said.