London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Kensington 1870

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]

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9
slight and even disregarded attack of Scailet-fever, or "Scarlatina," as
it is the mischievous fashion to call such cases, under the erroneous
notion that there is some difference between the one and the other,
if they are not different diseases altogether. It cannot be too widely
known that no such difference exists; that Scarlet-fever and Scarlatina
(which is merely the Latin and scientific name for Scarlet-fever) are one
and the same disease; and that of all epidemic diseases, this is, perhaps,
the one most to be feared. Small-pox may be more loathsome to the
view, but we have great power of control over it; and, if the means we
possess were only duly employed, it would no longer be a source of
panic as it is at the present moment. But even under existing circumstances,
and with widespread neglect of Vaccination, the fatality of
Small-pox is, on an average of years, a light thing compared with that
of Scarlet-fever, as will appear from the fact that while Small-pox was
fatal to only 25,061 persons in the Metropolis during the last 31 years,
Scarlet-fever carried off 34,358 persons in the last ten years alone.

The subjoined Table shews in a striking manner the relative importance of the two diseases as causes of death, and will not have been presented in vain should it attract to the subject of Scarlet-fever the attention its vast importance deserves.

The yearDeaths from Scarlet-fever.Deaths from Small-pox.
London.Kensington.London.Kensington.
18612358672152
186234571103450
1863607589201249
18643242906375
186521813164618
1866188528138810
1867143835133229
186829211706064
186958031062736
187059981939588
Total in 10 years -343589148312131
Annual average84359183113

Scarlet-fever, then, which, in 1870, destroyed 198 lives in Kensington,