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children under five, the figures for children under five being
78 in Camberwell, 128 in Peckham, and 102 in St. George's.
In respect to their locality, one death took place in Dulwich,
94 in Camberwell, 134 in Peckham, and 110 in St. George's.
One case was notified to us as cholera, that of a man who
had been removed to the Infirmary and who died under circumstances
somewhat suspicious of that disease. A postmortem
was however made, and the contents of the intestines
were sent up to Dr. Klein for bacteriological examination;
the result was negative.
Scarlatina caused 32 deaths, compared with 52 in 1896.
The figures for the quarters were 12 in the first two quarters,
eight in the third, and 12 in the fourth. Eleven took place in
Camberwell and also in St. George's, and 10 in Peckham.
The death-rate from scarlet fever in Camberwell was
among the lowest, recorded for the London sanitary districts.
During the year there were 143 notifications of enteric
fever. Of these 28 proved fatal. Although our figures were
under those for 1896, both as regards notification and deaths,
we did not escape being made the subject of alarmist paragraphs
in certain sensation-loving papers, which gave the details of a
terrible outbreak in Camberwell. The absurdity of the statement
is made additionally manifest on a comparison between
the death-rate, in 1897, of London, and that of Camberwell for
enteric fever. In the former it was .13, while in the latter .12
this ranking fourth on the list of the South London Parishes,
but being considerably less than the rates in many other parts
of the Metropolis.
Considering, however, that many of the parishioners of
Camberwell go down to the vicinity of Maidstone for hop-picking,
it is perhaps somewhat surprising that we did not have a
greater number of cases. A few of them were traced to
Maidstone, and also to other parts of the kingdom. There was
no particular incidence on the consumers of any one milk or
on those who were supplied by any one Water Company.
The notifications and deaths were distributed through
the Wards as follows: —
vii.