View report page

22
62 other cases, although the patients themselves were not school-going children,
there were other children in the houses who were. In 20 instances the histories
showed that there had been cases of "sore throat" amongst the inmates of the houses
in which the patients resided. In 23 instances there was evidence pointing to infection
from previous cases in the Borough. In 105 instances the houses were occupied
by members of more than one family, in 15 by single families, and in 17 instances
the cases occurred in artisan's dwellings of the block type. With regard to the
sanitary condition of the dwellings, in 90 this was satisfactory, in 18 fairly so, and
in 29 it was unsatisfactory, but these figures must not be taken as an indication
that a satisfactory sanitary condition is favourable to the occurrence of diphtheria
in houses. Similar proportions have been obtained in inspecting houses in which
no diphtheria cases were notified.
The cases certified as diphtheria in London numbered 7,378 as compared with
5,508 in 1910, 6,783 in 1909, 7,840 in 1908, and 8,585 in 1907, the attack-rates
being 1.6, 1.1, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 per 1,000 population for the five years respectively.
The deaths from the disease in the Metropolis numbered 612, as compared with 434
in 1910, 605 in 1909, 724 in 1908 and 787 in 1907, the death-rate for the five years
respectively being 0.11, 0.09, 0.12, 0.15 and 0.16 per 1,000 population.
ENTERIC OR TYPHOID FEVER.
The cases numbered 22 as certified, but two were subsequently not regarded as
cases of enteric fever at the hospitals to which they were removed.

The cases certified during 1911 were more than fifty per cent. below the
number for the preceding year, and it may be stated that there has not been any
year during modern times, or at all events during the last sixty years, when the