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69 [1910
SMALL POX.
No death was registered during the year.
MEASLES.
There were 166 deaths from measles during the year, as contrasted with
197 in the preceding year, and with a corrected average of 176 during the
25 years 1885 to 1909. There has thus been a decrease of 10 on the
mortality that has usually prevailed. In 1908, 78 deaths were registered, and
in 1907, 130.
In the first quarter of the year only one death was known. In the
second, however, the number increased to 8; in the third quarter the deaths
were nearly trebled, being 21, while in the fourth quarter they rose to 136, or
six times as many as they had been in the third quarter. In the first quarter
of the year the only death that was registered occurred in South-East Islington,
while in the second quarter there was 1 death in Barnsbury, 3 in South-East
Islington, and 4 in Lower Holloway. In the third quarter the deaths in
Lower Holloway had increased to 7, in both Barnsbury and South-East Islington
to 6, while Highbury for the first time during ihe year contributed to the
mortality, 2 deaths being registered there- In the fourth quarter the deaths in
Lower Holloway increased to 25, in Highbury to 14, in Barnsbury to 36, and
in South-East Islington to 16, while Tufnell and Upper Holloway for the
first time during the year were affected to the extent of 10 and 11 deaths
respectively. Thus at the end of the year there were 10 deaths registered in
Tufnell, 11 in Upper Holloway, 24 in Tollington, 36 in Lower Holloway,
16 in Highbury, 43 in Barnsbury, and 26 in Islington South East. These
figures are just what one would have reasonably expected, because the chief
factor at work in the case of infantile deaths is very patent in the
case of deaths from measles. There is no epidemic disease, with the probable
exception of diarrhoea, which contributes so much to the death-rate among
young children as it does. It is, however, found that many, or the
greater number, of the deaths from it are due to secondary causes which attack
a very large percentage of the patients and which, as has been frequently
pointed out by the Medical Officer of Health, are chiefly pneumonia and
bronchitis, but especially the former. Indeed, in the year just passed, 136 of
the registered deaths from measles were probably due to the pneumonia