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high mortality from measles came under my notice during the year;—Of eighteen
oases of measles, mostly amongst children under three years of age, in the Shoreditch
Workhouse, Dr. Norton, the medical officer, informs me that no less than nine
ended fatally.
Arising out of a communication from the London County Council upon the
subject of including measles amongst the diseases scheduled as dangerous and
infectious for the purposes set forth in certain sections of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, the question as to the Sanitary Authority having the legal powers for
enforcing reasonable precautions for the prevention of the spread of the disease came
under the consideration of the Borough Council and they were of opinion that
for the purposes set forth in sections 60 to 66, 68 to 70, and 72 to 74 inclusive, of the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891, measles should be included in the term,
"dangerous and infectious disease." There is nothing in the above sections requiring
that measles shall be notified.
WHOOPING COUGH.

Whooping cough has been in the past and still remains a very fruitful cause of
death amongst infants and young children. During recent years the deaths have not
been quite so numerous as formerly. Possibly this decrease may be one of the results
of the improvements effected in connection with the sanitary condition of dwellings of
the people.
With two exceptions, the deaths from whooping cough during 1900 were all of
children under five years of age. The death-rate was 0.35 per 1,000, as compared
with 0.36 in 1899, 0.80 in 1898, 0.49 in 1897, 0.94 in 1896, 0.67 in 1895, 0.70 in 1894,
and 0.54 in 1893.
Whooping cough was the cause of some 1,948 deaths in the Metropolis during
1900, and the death-rate from it was 0.43 per 1,000, as compared with 0.38 for 1899.