Eugene Doyle recalls the outbreak of gastroenteritis that killed on average 1,000 babies a year during the late 1930s – early 40s

 

During the second half of the 1930s and continuing into the 1940s, Dublin suffered from an epidemic of acute gastroenteritis which caused thousands of deaths in infants and young children. There were some cases in country areas but Dublin was hit hardest.

Dr. Oliver Fitzgerald, who was editor of the Journal of the Irish Medical Association, was so annoyed at the loss of so many young lives that he wrote an editorial in October 1946 stating that it amounted to the equivalent of the destruction of the whole population of an average Irish town.

In the Dáil in October 1946 Mr MacEntee, who was Minister for Local Government and Public Health at the time, was questioned about the number of deaths in infants and young children from gastroenteritis. The figures he gave showed that the disease had caused an increasing number of deaths especially from 1940 onwards. For the last five years in the 1930’s five or six hundred babies were dying annually from this disease, but during the four years from 1942 to 1945, over one thousand babies died each year from this infection.

Deaths in Dublin children were nearly twice as common than those in the country. For those who died there must have been thousands more who suffered a milder form of the infection and survived.

In 1944 Dr Ward, who was a Junior Minister in the Government, had taken over the the old Deaf and Dumb Training School in Dublin and renamed it St Clare’s Hospital. It was established as an isolation hospital and was confined to admitting only infants who were suffering from gastroenteritis.

The infection especially affected infants in the first few months of life when they were most vulnerable and least able to cope with it. It usually started suddenly with vomiting and diarrhoea. These symptoms could be so severe that the child’s life could be in danger in a matter of hours. The children most often affected were those of the poor, especially those who were being bottle-fed on cow’s milk. Breast fed infants were much less likely to become infected.

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