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63
number of notification of Diphtheria received during 1909 in
the Borough of Lambeth be compared with the yearly average
of the 10 years (1891-1900) for the old Parish of Lambeth,
i.e., since the Notification Clauses of the Public Health
(London) Act, 1891, came into force, a similar decrease will
be noticed, viz., a decrease of 47.8 per cent.—the yearly
average of notification for the old Parish being 715, and the
number received during 1909 for the Borough 373. Fortunately
the comparison can be extended further, and made for
many years past, as the statistics for Diphtheria have been
worked out in connection with the old Parish, as well as the
new Borough, and are shewn below, as far as mortality from
the disease is concerned.
Even allowing for the slight fallacy that may arise from
comparing statistics of the old Parish with those of the new
Borough of Lambeth, the extraordinary sudden decrease in
the mortality from Diphtheria is again most remarkable, and,
when taken in conjunction with the equally extraordinary
and equally sudden decrease in the number of notifications
of the same disease received, points to a marked decline in
the prevalence of Diphtheria throughout the Borough of
Lambeth during 1909, as well as during 1908, 1907, 1906,
1905, 1904, 1903, 1902 and 1901; and that, too, although
Diphtheria has been rising slowly but surely in epidemic
proportion for the previous 20 years ending 1900 (vide table
on page 64). The statistics for London, as a whole, are no
less remarkable.
During 1909, no school was closed on account of
Diphtheria.