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hospitals, and was equal to 12.4 at Homerton and 18.7 at Stockwell. The
rate of mortality both from enteric fever and scarlet-fever, at the Stockwell
Hospital compared with that which prevailed at Homerton, showed a
marked excess. Among 398 scarlet-fever cases recorded last year at the
London Fever Hospital the mortality was only 10.6 per cent.
It is satisfactory to note, says the Registrar-General, that the appreciation
and use of these Metropolitan infectious diseases hospitals is becoming
more general. In 1876, the proportion of the total deaths from enteric
fever in London occurring in these hospitals was 7.2 per cent., while it rose
to 9.0 and 9.4 in 1877 and 1878. Of the scarlet-fever deaths in London,
only 3.7 and 3.5 per cent. occurred in these hospitals in 1876 and 1877,
whereas the proportion rose to 5.0 per cent. in 1878.
Relative Proportion of Deaths occasioned by the mobe ob less
constant Epidemic Diseases.

The last named diseases are those which principally attack children in
arms, who are carried about by their mothers from place to place ; and
hence the contagion becomes diffused with greater facility than the other
three, which more usually attack older children and adults, and who can be
with proper care and attention more easily isolated. Still, the question of
preventing the spread of infantile diseases is a most important one, and
deserves the greatest attention, notwithstanding the difficulties in the way
of enforcing it.