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The disease was most prevalent in Munster Ward, 370 of
the 740 cases reported from the schools belonging to that
ward. Although largely spread by schools, the fatality of
measles is mainly among children under school age. Thus of
the seventy-four deaths sixty were of children under school
age, fourteen being under one year, thirty-five between one
and two, and eleven between two and three years,
No fewer than nine children died from measles who lived
in Ileckfield Place, probably the worst street, sociallv, in the
borough, and the effect, in localities of this class, of dealing
with infectious diseases by notification and isolation, is
shown bv the fact that whereas for many years past there has
been no excessive prevalence in Heckfield Place of the notifiable
diseases, diphtheria and scarlet fever, the mortality
among its residents from the non-notifiable diseases, measles,
whooping cough, and diarrhoea, has been invariably much
higher than in the rest of the borough.
The cases of measles reported from the schools are visited
by the inspectors, who give printed and verbal instructions
respecting the precautions to be taken to prevent the spread of
the disease, but it is found as a rule that the patient has been
ill for a week or more before the information reaches the
Medical Officer of Health.
Whooping Cough.
Forty-eight deaths were ascribed to whooping cough, or
ten below the average number of the preceding ten years.
Forty-six of the deaths were of children under the age of
five years.
Diarrhœa.