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60
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
Erysipelas.
232 notifications were received and five deaths occurred,
compared with 236 notifications and 18 deaths in 1902.
Measles.
The total number of deaths due to the above disease was
109,66 of males and 43 of females. 18 occurred in Clapham,
seven in Putney, 26 in Streatham, eight in Tooting, and 50 in
Wandsworth.
The number of deaths shows an increase of 15, compared
with 1902, and of 187, compared with the corrected decennial
average.
31 of the deaths were of infants under one year, 72 of
children from one to five years, and six from five to 15 years of
age.
The death-rate for the year was .43 per 1,000, compared with
39 in 1902, and 29 in 1901. The death-rate for the whole of
London was .44 in 1903, and .50 in 1902.
In January 1903 the London County Council made an order,
which was approved by the Local Government Board, to the
effect that Sections 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, and 74
of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, with respect to dangerous
infectious diseases shall apply to the Administrative
County of London, from and including 1st April, 1903, to the
disease known as Measles.
These sections refer chiefly to disinfection, exposure of
infected persons and articles, knowingly letting houses in which
infected persons have been lodging, and burial of persons who
have died of infectious disease.
They do not include the section requiring notification, and
consequently it is impossible to get information as to all cases of
this disease occurring in the Borough.
Several medical men, especially in the month of April, notified
cases assuming that it was notifiable, and since the 1st April
59 such notifications were received. A considerable number of
notifications were received from parents, but the great majority of
cases were notified by the teachers of schools.