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forward intimation to School Authorities of any case of Infections
Disease occurring in the person of a scholar or even in a house
from which children are attending school, and further to certify
when infection ceased to exist in each case. I do not know
what more can be done to facilitate the proposed enquiry, hut I
am certain that any suggestion having this object in view will be
gladly adopted by Sanitary Authorities and their Officers.
Reference to this subject would not be complete unless mention
were made to what is known as the anti-toxin treatment of the
disease, the success of which in France and Germany has induced
the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board to give this
treatment a trial in the hospitals under their control. That the
lymph exerts a marvellous influence upon the disease is beyond
dispute, but the amount of its curative properties can only be
ascertained by experience, and better opportunities for obtaining
which can hardly be conceived than that possessed by the Metropolitan
Asylums Board. Arrangements have also been made
between the Managers and the Royal College of Physicians and
Surgeons for Bacteriological investigations to be made into the
cases under the care of the Managers, with a view to the early
recognition of the disease and its differentiation from other throat
affections.
Fever.—Under this head four deaths were registered, all of
them being ascribed to enteric or typhoid fever. Three of the
patients died in institutions outside the Parish and one in the
City Road Sub-registration District. This is the smallest
number of deaths from fever it has been my duty to record since
1888, in which year the number and nature of the disease were
identical with this year's return.
The table of Infectious Sickness shows an equally favourable
account, there having been only 17 cases of fever notified, and
all being described as enteric.
In the Metropolitan area there were 653 deaths from fever,
against 719 for the year 1893.
Whooping Cough was the cause of 18 deaths, being a
marked decrease upon the previous year, when 40 deaths were
certified to this cause.
The number of deaths registered in London from whooping
cough was 2094, and although the disease showed a considerable
increase during each quarter of the year, yet the total result
showed that the death rate was considerably below the average
of the preceding ten years.