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3 Diminished resistence in the persons infected is a well recognised
feature of certain selected classes, living in an unhygienic environment.
The children living in the Infirmary are drawn from a class where
bad feeding, bad housing, improper clothing, degraded heredity and
other circumstances all tend to lower resistance.
Notwithstanding the operation of all these influences, however,
it is to be feared that the excessive fatality of Poor Law institutional
measles points to the urgent need for amending the hygienic circumstances
of the inmates. It is certain that a measles fatality rate of
46 per cent. calls urgently for drastic changes in the conditions which
permit of it.