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66
If you refer to the Scarlet Fever Chart, you will find that the
curves of the disease for this and for last year are very similar, rising
and falling almost exactly at the same periods of the year.
I have compared these curves with the well-known mortality curves
for London, prepared some years ago by Dr. Buchan and Sir Arthur
Mitchell, and I find they, too, are very similar, although the mortality
curve reaches its maximum a little later, which is, of course, only
natural, for death succeeds the attack.
I should have mentioned, as particularly bearing on this subject,
that Dr. Ballard, when Medical Officer of Health for Islington, investigated
the seasonal behaviour of this disease in Islington, and he found
that it was most prevalent here in the last quarter of the year and least
so in the first quarter. This is exactly the case now.
The records of the Metropolitan Asylums Board also entirely bear
out the truth of these observations, for it is found that the admissions
of Scarlet Fever patients have been always greatest in the last quarter
of the year.
In Islington the force of the epidemic seems to have fallen most
heavily on District 9, which lies south of Brewery Road and west of
Caledonian, Road. In District No. 11, which is situated in the south
of the parish in St. Peter's Ward, its effect was least felt.

It will be recollected that, when the Sanitary Districts were formed,
I divided the parish so that each district should contain as nearly as
possible an equal number (2,732) of houses.