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The number of cases removed to hospital was 325 or 86'6
per cent, of the cases notified. In 1903 83.9 per cent., and
in 1902 87.7 per cent, of the cases notified were removed to
hospital. In the sub-districts the percentage of cases
removed to total cases was as follows:—East Battersea, 91.4;
North-West Battersea, 97.2; South-West Battersea, 71.9.
The high percentage of removals is an indication of the popular
confidence in the Metropolitan Asylums Board's hospitals, for
in no case was it found necessary to exercise compulsion to
effect a removal.
In 78 cases a history of direct personal contact with a
previous case in the district was obtained, and 14 other cases
were infected outside Battersea. In 20 cases the patients were
infected after the return of an inmate of the same house who
had been discharged from an isolation hospital after an attack
of Scarlet Fever. In some of these "return" cases the
infection was probably derived from the primary case. An
outbreak of Scarlet Fever, comprising 6 cases, occurred in a
boarding-school early in the year. The first patient (who
infected, directly or indirectly, the five subsequent patients), was
taken ill on 19th February. On the 16th she received a
parcel of pancakes from her home in the country, and it was
afterwards ascertained that on 18th February a case of Scarlet
Fever was removed to hospital from her home.
In 13 of the cases notified as suffering from Scarlet Fever,
the diagnosis was found to be erroneous and the patients sent
back from hospital.
Diphtheria and Membranous Croup.
The case-rate, death-rate and case-mortality from
Diphtheria and Membranous Croup since 1891 are set out
in the following table:—