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15
MEASLES.
There was only one death from measles during the year.
Signs of epidemic prevalence appeared in the middle of
December, and it was considered advisable to expedite the
closure of the Infants' Schools at All Saints and Richmond
Road for the holidays by a few days. In one school the
closure seems to have been fairly successful, in the other
there has only been a slight interference with the epidemic,
but in neither has it been necessary to consider re-closure on
re-assembling after the holidays.
SCARLET FEVER.
83 cases were notified during the year of which 19 were
sent to hospital on account of special circumstances. In one
family the mother had the complaint herself, in one there
was insufficient accommodation, in one the mother was near
her confinement, one patient had a running sore on his leg
which was likely to retain the infection if not cured before
recovery from the fever, others on account of occupation or
want of accommodation for treatment, and one because they
lived in a flat where four tenements opened on the same
porch. The building of rows of flats with the front door of
each set of flats opening on to one porch is a most objectionable
arrangement. These houses have to be drained to a
common drain in a passage at the back, and this has obvious
disadvantages. Drains can easily be carried under a house
if good workmanship and first rate materials are used.
Possibly the extra expense necessary might induce the
speculators to build semi-detached houses, each flat with a
separate entrance. If this class of dwelling makes much
increase in the Borough you may find the provision of isolation
hospital accommodation become very urgent. With
the usual conditions prevailing in this town of one family with
children and lodgers of adult age, isolation has been fairly
easy to arrange in the homes with accommodation at Croydon
for special rases; but if flats with practically four families in
one house, and six-roomed cottages are let to two families
with children, epidemics will be almost impossible to cope
with. This tendency to overcrowding is due to a rise
in the rents of old houses let on weekly tenancies to
working class families. This rise amounts in some cases to