View report page

1910] 60
which supervened on it, and if we inquire into the cause, we will find
that it is to be traced to the ignorance of the parents, especially the mothers,
as to the necessity of taking precautions for warding off the dangers to which
the lungs are so susceptible after an attack of what is in itself so mild a
disease, for it is a rare thing indeed for measles alone to kill any person. That
this is true is apparent from the fact that out of 166 deaths from measles
registered in the borough last year, 160 were contributed by diseases which
supervened on the measles itself. Thus pneumonia was a secondary cause in
136 cases, bronchitis in 3, diarrhoea in 4, whooping cough in 1, and other ailments
which will be found in Table XXXV.
The registers show that 21 deaths occurred among children under
1 year old, and it is notable that all of these had attained the age of 6 months,
while 2 of the infants died in their eighth month, 2 in their ninth month, 6 in
their tenth month, 6 in their eleventh month, and 5 in their twelfth month.
There were also 131 deaths among children 1 to 5 years old. and 14 deaths
between 5 and 15 years old.
The epidemic of measles which commenced during the fourth quarter
received the very anxious attention of the Public Health Committee, to whom
full particulars were regularly submitted. There is no disease peculiar to
children which has of late years caused so much concern to sanitary
authorities and their Medical Officers of Health as measles, because of the
modern system of whipping-up young children, who are really under the school
age, to the schools, which then become a powerful factor in its spread.
The figures which have just been given show that by far the greater
number of deaths occur among children under five years of age, and yet very
large numbers of little ones are daily exposed to unnecessary danger by their
attendance at the schools. Indeed, when we look at the roll of deaths from
measles and whooping-cough, we cannot, if we have unbiassed minds, come to
any other conclusion than that the lives of many of the little ones who have
died from this disease, might have been preserved if they had not been sent to
school, where they were brought into contact with the disease. The Medical
Officer of Health feels no uncertainty as to what is the best thing to be done
with these children. There is one course, and one only possible, which is to
keep them at home. There is no reason for their attendance at school; they
learn nothing, while at the same time they are kept in confinement and in