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total births. It would seem that contrary to expectation the new law
as to vaccination had throughout the country produced a decided
effect in increasing the proportion borne by vaccinated children to
births.
The use of glycerinated calf lymph in which the public have confidence,
the abolition of public vaccination stations and domiciliary
vaccination, together go to make the operation much more acceptable
to the people. The Local Government Board issue some thousands of
tubes daily, of glycerinated lymph, which is prepared for them by a
considerable staff, in premises rented from the Jenner Institute, with
care and accuracy calculated to place the lymph beyond suspicion.
Healthy calves are selected and vaccinated. The lymph is prepared
with glycerine and the emulsion tested by culture, to see that it
contains no harmful organisms. The calf yielding the lymph is
subsequently slaughtered, and the lymph is not passed for use until a
certificate has been given that the animal from which it was taken was
healthy in all respects.*
Scarlet Fever. —Two hundred and eighty-five cases of this disease
were registered, against 238 for the previous year; 206 of these were
removed to isolation hospitals,'including eight cases occurring among
the Nursing Staff in the North-Western Hospital. Our deaths from
this cause were six, or three above the number recorded for 1898; the
mortality was 2.1 per cent, on registered cases.
Diphtheria. —The total number of cases of this disease notified
during the year was, including four cases which occurred among the
staff of the North-Western Hospital, 106 against 131 for 1898. The
fatal cases from this cause were 15, equivalent to a mortality of 13.2
per cent, on registered cases. The cases removed from their homes to
isolation hospitals numbered 62.
Diphtheria was the assigned cause of 1,964 deaths in London
in the course of the year 1899. To quote from the Registrar-General,
"The London death rate from Diphtheria in 1899 was below the
average of the rates in the ten years, 1889-1898, which had been 0.49
* Report of Local Government Board.