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79
1897
DIPHTHERIA.
There were 700 cases of sickness attributed to Diphtheria, representing
a case-rate of 2.05 per 1,000 of the population. This return is
very much less than that of the preceding year, when 1,067 cases
were notified, so that there was a decrease of 367. It is also 119 less
than the corrected mean number of cases known in the years 1891-96.

Diphtheria was distributed in the Parish unequally, the number of
cases in proportion to population being as high as 2.65 per 1,000 in
Upper Holloway, and as low as 1.56 in Highbury. The former district,
as a rule, has always been the greatest sufferer, which is probably in
part attributable to the heavy clay soil that is found there, and possibly
to some extent to sewerage conditions. The latter circumstance is one
that must be considered, for although it is strenuously denied by some
authorities that bad drainage is a cause of this disease, it cannot be denied
that such an evil undermines the constitution and leaves it more prone
and susceptible to the diphtheritic contagium. Noxious smells and air
mixed with sewer gases, even though the smell be not perceptible, have a
very harmful effect on the throat, and consequently if persons in this
weakened state, particularly children, come within the influence of the
disease, they are almost certain to be attacked. That defective sewerage
existed in Upper Holloway is only too true, for it is a well known fact