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23
"The deaths attributed to Diphtheria in the whole of London
numbered 3,265, and were in the proportion of 0.75 per 1,000 living,
this being by far the highest rate yet recorded, and exceeding the
average in the previous decennium by no less than 0.46 per 1,000.
The mortality from this disease, which for several years has shown
a tendency to increase, had been in the last four years respectively
0.33, 0.34, 0.46, and 0.76 per 1,000. The deaths from Diphtheria
and Croup, taken together, amounted in 1893 to 3,482, while the
average number in the preceding decennium, corrected for increase
of population, had not exceeded 1,861. Distribution of the London
Hospital deaths to their appropriate sanitary areas shows the East
group of these areas to have suffered the highest Diphtheria mortality,
viz., 1.00 per 1,000, the Central group coming next with a rate of
082, then the North and South groups with a rate of 0.73 in each
case, and lastly, the West group with a rate of 0.52."
Of the total notifications 256 came from the North District, 217
from the South, and 273 from the East.
Three hundred and twenty-five premises were found in a fairly
satisfactory condition; 34 had no water supply to the closets ; in 50
the internal drainage arrangements were faulty; in 120 the drains
outside the house were defective; in 21 the domestic water supply
was drawn from the closet cistern; and in 198 various other minor
insanitary conditions were discovered. Sixty-eight cases occurred
amongst families occupying one room only.
The removals numbered 177. Of these 126 were admitted into
the Asylums Board Hospitals; the remaining 51 were treated in
local Hospitals. Many of these were cases of so-called Membranous
Croup requiring immediate operation to avert suffocation.
WHOOPING COUGH.
(Decennial average 112.)
Whooping-Cough caused 59 deaths, all except two being amongst
young children, and shewing a mortality of 3.2 per 1,000 on the
estimated population of young children.