View report page

33
Previous experience has shown that the fall in the number of deaths from
throat diseases other than diphtheria corresponded with the rise in the
number of deaths from diphtheria; but the last four years show that there is
no longer a correspondence between the two sets of figures, the deaths from
diphtheria having increased in number out of all proportion to the diminution
in the number attributed to other throat diseases, and this is specially
observable in 1893, and in a lesser degree in l892.
The deaths per million make the proportions more correct and more readily
comparable.

Here we see that an enormous increase in the mortality from all throat
diseases has been taking place, and that this mortality is wholly and solely
due to diphtheria.
The further conclusions to be drawn are : —
1.—That there appears to be little doubt that a distinct change of type has
taken place in a large proportion of disease affecting the throat, accounting in
the first place for the diminution in the mortality from other diseases of the
throat and its displacement by diphtheria.
2.—That it is very evident that the change of type is from a non-infectious
to an infectious form of disease, accounting for the enormous increase of
diphtheria mortality over an 1 above the diminution of that of other throat
diseases during the last few and quite recent years.
3.—That diphtheria has become an acute epidemic disease with far more
sudden variations in extent and intensity of prevalence than formerly, and
that we may expect epidemic and. non-epidemic years with marked seasonal
prevalence in the future.
Recently Mr. Shirley Murphy, the Medical Officer of Health of the London
County Council, has further traced the great influence of schools in the
spread of diphtheria in a Report that enters into all the details of the subject,