London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Marylebone 1896

The sanitary chronicles of the Parish of St. Marylebone being the annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1896

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Brought forward771
St. Elizabeth's Home4
St. Peter's Home2
Holborn Workhouse2
Workhouse, Gray's Inn Road1
Westminster Workhouse1
St. Giles' Workhouse1
Invalid Asylum, Stoke Newington1
St. Vincent's Orphanage1
Convalescent Home, Hampstead1
Otherwise13
Total798

INFECTIOUS DISEASES DURING 1896.
Measles.
In this parish measles is not notifiable, hence its
presence or absence is only known by the mortality. Measles
was epidemic during January, February, and March. There
were no less than 188 deaths, 160 of the deaths being
under five years of age. Since, in London, the average
death-rate from measles is six per cent, of children
attacked under five years of age, the deaths represent,
probably, some 3,000 cases.
Scarlet Fever.
The course of scarlet fever may be gathered from the
curve showing the number of cases each week notified, as
compared with the mean curve of five preceding years.
The five years' average is denoted by a thin, while the 1896
returns are denoted by a thick curve. It will be seen
from this curve that scarlet fever was epidemic during 1896.
There is a looseness in the term "epidemic," but in
the sense the writer uses the term, it means that the
disease was considerably above the average. Scarlet
fever was about, or even somewhat below, the mean
number during January, February, March, and most of
April. Towards the end of April there were indications
of undue prevalence, and, with few intermissions, it
continued to increase until it attained a maximum in
August. In two separate weeks in that month the cases
averaged 34 in the seven days, or nearly five a day. As
usual, the accommodation for isolation in hospital became