View report page

89
MEASLES AND WHOOPING COUGH.
No other diseases are so intimately associated with school life
as measles and whooping cough. Both these diseases prevailed in
considerable degree during the year, and together were responsible
for a total of 120 deaths.
The deaths from measles numbered 45, of which 40 occurred
in children under 5 years of age.
As a result of the notifications from the schools and of the enquiries
made in connection with these, 1,442 cases of measles came
to knowledge. It is probable that these constituted by far the
greater proportion of all the cases occurring, as the number of deaths
had they occurred only as a result of these 1,442 cases represent a
fatality rate of little over 3 per cent. The fatality rate of measles
is probably not much lower than this.
It may, however, under particular circumstances rise to a very
much higher rate, as is well seen in certain institution outbreaks.
By the courtesy of the Medical Officer of the Willesden Infirmary
I am able to give the fatality rate at that institution, and the result
is striking, Altogether there occurred in the Infirmary during an
outbreak not strictly limited to the year under review, 24 cases of
measles, and of these no fewer than 11 died, giving the phenomenally
high case fatality rate of 46 per cent.
Measles under such circumstances assumes so formidable an
aspect as to take rank among the more virulent pestilences, such as
plague, small pox, and cholera.
The reasons for this high measles fatality rate among infirmary
children are probably complex.