View report page

28
infection of houses, etc.; by compulsory notification (since
1889), and, generally, by increased attention to sanitation. The
numerical results of this enquiry are set out in the table at
page 29. It will be observed that, excepting with regard to
diphtheria, the results are satisfactory, and such as may be
deemed to justify the expenditure incurred in provision of
hospitals, etc. The observation, of course, does not apply to
measles, whooping-cough, and diarrhœa, diseases which are
not admissible to the hospitals, and which, practically, are left
to take their course, save in so far as the fatality of them
may have been reduced by amelioration in the sanitary condition
and the general surroundings of the people. Diphtheria
prior to 1887 was essentially a rural disease. At about that
time it began to invade towns, and it has since become a
distinctly urban plague; which, so far, has not shown itself
very amenable to the influences that have led to so satisfactory
a reduction in mortality from small-pox, scarlet fever, and
fever. Comparing the deaths from diphtheria in the quinquennial
period, 1873-77, with those in the five years, 189397,
there is shown in the latter period an increase in deaths to
the number of 297, after correction for increase of population.
Small-pox, on the other hand, shows a corrected reduction in
deaths to the number of 102; and the other diseases reductions
as follows:—measles, 69; scarlet fever, 88; whoopingcough,
138 ; fever, 125, and diarrhœa, 244.