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it receives. There is this most significant difference
between this mortality in different classes of the community.
In the better sort of practice the mortality from
measles is almost nil. Some practitioners with well-to-do
patients have possibly never seen a fatal case of measles
in their practice, though the disease is often pyrexial; but
the number of deaths from it now in the large towns of
England and Wales and of Scotland exceeds greatly the
number from scarlet fever or diphtheria, or from both of
these put together. This mortality has been described
lately by writers in the Nineteenth Century as a form of
murder."
In October last your Board addressed a further communication
to the Local Government Board, urging that
an early decision should be given to their proposal that
measles should be included in the list of notifiable
diseases.
3.—Scarlet Fever (decennial average 6.3 per 1,000).
The 7 deaths, all young children under 5, in 1896, were
slightly above the average, and occurred in public institutions
outside the district, viz.:—
1 death at Homerton Fever Hospital.
2 deaths at the North-Western Fever Hospital.
4 deaths at the Western Fever Hospital.
The total number of cases notified in 1896 was 180;
of these 153 were removed to hospital for treatment.
4.—Diphtheria (decennial average 14.2).
The 5 deaths of young children under 5 years were 9.2
below the decennial average; 2 of the deaths occurred