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The disease also appeared in two institutions. Seven
cases occurred early in the year at the Female Orphan
Asylum, Beddington, resulting from the premature return
of a patient from a convalescent home, and 15 cases occurred
towards the end of the year at the Holborn Union Schools
in Mitcham.
Measles.—This disease, which was so prevalent in 1896 in
3 Parishes, again made its appearance in 1897. Cases
occurred in 6 Parishes, but it was in Mitcham only that there
was anything like a marked prevalence. In all, 162 cases
were ascertained to have occurred in 99 private houses
throughout the year, and there were also 5 cases at the
Holborn Schools.
In Mitcham the disease first appeared at the end of
March, not long after the first cases of scarlet fever occurred,
and during April it extended rather rapidly, and remained
prevalent during May, as well as April, but in June there was
a rapid decline, and by the end of July the disease had disappeared.
There were no more cases until the last two
months of the year, when 7 occurred in 5 houses.
Although measles began to prevail almost simultaneously
with scarlet fever, it spread much more rapidly, for, whereas
the former reached its height in April and the beginning of
May, the latter did not do so until May and June, the reason
being the greater infectivity of measles. With the exception
of the 7 cases at the end of the year, 117 cases of measles
occurred in Mitcham in 70 houses, and there were 5 deaths, or
a fatality of 4½ per cent, of the ascertained cases. The disease
was, therefore, more dangerous than scarlet fever, the fatality
from which was 2½ per cent., in 190 cases. But the type of
measles was, comparatively speaking, severe, and a large proportion
of the sufferers were children under 3 years of age.
The fatality in 1896 in the much larger epidemic of 626 cases
was considerably less, namely, 1½ per cent.