View report page

7
Scarlet Fever. When the year commenced, Scarlet Fever, which had
been very severe in 1869 appeared to be dying away, and we were in hopes
that it would not extend materially as an epidemic into 1870. In this,
however, we were disappointed. Taking the year as a whole, although
there were rather fewer cases in the public practice, the mortality due to
the affection was much higher than in 1869. The public cases numbered
644 against 714 in 1869, and the deaths registered 465 against the 313
registered in 1869. Of these 465 deaths, 262 oocurred in the east and 203

Scarlet Fever is especially an autumnal disease, and so in point of fact we
were in this position in the last quarter of the year, that the epidemic of
Scarlatina appeared to have taken a new start, while another epidemic,
namely that of Small Pox, was commencing vigorously.
Hooping Cough has not troubled us in an epidemic form since the early
months of the year.
I said all that it was necessary to say about the localized outbreak of
Relapsing Fever in my last annual report.
The Localized Outbreak of Typhoid Fever in Holloway.
Many of the details of this very remarkable outbreak of a fatal disease
will possess little interest for the non-professional reader, and hence, in the
account I am now about to give of it, I shall confine myself as far as
possible to those facts the inferences from which are of the highest practical
importance. Such of you as may desire fuller information, will find it in
a pamphlet which I have placed in the Library.*
At no time during the year was Typhoid Fever unusually prevalent
among our population generally, but between July 3rd and September 10th
in one circumscribed locality no fewer than 168 individuals of different
ages, and the inhabitants of 67 different houses were attacked with this
form of Fever, and of them 26 died. In pursuing the inquiry which this
* "On a localized outbreak of Typhoid Fever in Islington, traced to the use of impuro
Milk."—Churchill and Sons, 1871.