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term "Dangerous Infectious Disease" for the purposes set out in
Section 68 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, in order that the
Local Sanitary Authorities may have power to proceed, if necessary,
against parents who send their children to school suffering from measles.
Whooping Cough caused 25 deaths. It has frequently been
observed that Whooping Cough and Measles occasion more deaths
than Small Pox, Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, and Typhoid Fever combined,
and yet the first two named diseases are regarded with comparative
indifference by parents of the lower classes. That these two complaints
are mostly fatal to children of the working or artizan classes points
either to a want of care, or, we may add, means, in the nursing or
medical care of the little sufferers, death being almost always the result
of secondary affections such as bronchitis and pneumonia, &c.
Fever, Enteric or Typhoid.—Thirty-three cases of this disease were
notified, against 55 for the preceding year. The fatal cases numbered
5, against 7 for 1896. The majority of the 33 cases registered were
contracted beyond the borders of this parish, a fact brought into striking
notice after the close of the summer holidays. Among these cases
were two patients who contracted typhoid from the Farleigh water at
Maidstone. It should be remembered that this disease is rarely, if
ever, communicated directly from parson to person, but usually by
means of contaminated water or other fluid.
Small Pox.—It is gratifying to be able to report that no case of
Small Pox occurred during the year, this making the second year since
the disease visited our parish. Small Pox caused 16 deaths in London,
against 9 for the preceding year, and 206 in 1893. The comparative
immunity of London from this dread disease during the last few years is
no doubt largely due to the wise policy adopted by the Asylums Board
in promptly removing cases, as they occur, to isolation hospitals outside
London.
A bill for effecting some alterations in our Vaccination Laws is
now before Parliament. In regard to the question of the efficacy of
vaccination in preventing Small Pox, it must be remembered that the
mortality from this disease is much less now than in pre-vaccination