View report page

36
summer months—(1) feeding of infants, instruction on and regulation
of children's feeding; (2) purification of the ground and streets; and
(3) purification as far as practicable of the milk supply. I should
like to find that sterilized milk is much more widely used.
Measles.—As this is not a notifiable disease we can only guage
its prevalence and degree of severity by means of the death returns.
Including both intra and extra-parochial returns there were 38
deaths attributed to measles during the year giving a death-rate
of 0.59 per 1,000 as compared with 0.54 in 1899. The London
death-rate for Measles for 1900 was 0.42 per 1,000, there being
1,928 deaths from that cause as against 2,142 in 1899. Thirtythree
out of the 38 deaths in Clerkenwell occurred under 5 years
of age, only 4 cases out of the total occurred in public institutions,
that is were extra-parochial. It is probable that these figures do
not by any means indicate the destruction of life due to Measles,
for this disease is often complicated with bronchitis or other respiratory
disease, and hence some deaths due to Measles are entered in
the returns as due to bronchitis, etc. Measles and Whooping
Cough—both of which are looked upon generally as slight ailments
— caused more deaths in Clerkenwell (namely, 91) during 1900 than
Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, Enteric Fever, Croup and Influenza all
put together.
It may be pointed out that the remedy for this state of things
lies most largely in the hands of parents and others having the
care of children. There are strong reasons against the inclusion of
Measles under the notification clauses of the Public Health
(London) Act 1891, and hospital provision for this disease is at
present impossible. Careful nursing of individual cases and closure
of infants' departments of schools during an outbreak, coupled
with disinfection when necessary, seem to be the best methods of
reducing the high death-rate from this disease.
Whooping-Cough.—Like measles, this is not a notifiable disease.
Hence we are only able to guage its prevalent severity by its deathrate.
During 1900 there were 53 deaths from Whooping Cough, as
against 28 in 1899 and 34 in 1898. The death-rate per 1,000 was