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140
ON THE SANITARY CONDITION OF
continued) and diarrhoea under this heading. The Zymotic deathrates
for London and the Strand District were 3.14 and 2.7
respectively per 1,000 of the population. (See Table V.)
Compared with the averages in the ten preceding years, the
mortality from scarlet fever, and "fever" throughout London,
was below the average, while that from measles, whooping-cough,
diphtheria and from diarrhoea showed an excess.
Measles was very prevalent in the District in the early
part of the year. During the 1st Quarter, the outbreak
was worst in St. Anne's Sub-District, but during the 2nd
Quarter, it was very severely felt in the Strand SubDistrict;
and it became necessary to require the exclusion of
the children in affected houses from the schools under section
88 of the Day School Code. Leaflets, giving instruction as
regards measles, were distributed throughout the affected parts of
the District with the view of impressing upon parents the serious
nature of the disease, and the precautions which should be taken
to prevent infection, and pointing out the risk of children suffering
from the disease being exposed to cold or damp. The officers of
the Public Dispensary in Stanhope Street, who attended most of
the cases in that neighbourhood, kindly distributed the leaflets in
the houses to which they were called ; and similar information was
also published in the St. Anne's Parish Magazine by the Rector.
The question of adding Measles to the list of diseases which
have to be notified has been brought under the consideration of
your Board, on several occasions, in communications from other
Authorities, but the reasons advanced in favour of the proposal
have not been sufficiently convincing to induce the Board to alter
a previous decision (as recorded in Mins. vol. 19, p. 176) that
measles should not be notifiable. An exhaustive report on the
measures that may be adopted by Sanitary Authorities with a
view to obtaining control over this disease, by Dr. Theodore
Thomson, was published in 1896, in the supplement to the 24th
Annual Report of the Local Government Board. These may be
summarised thus:—
(1.) Compulsory notification [a] for all cases; [b] for first
cases in a house only.