View report page

24
I may say that my investigations respecting scarlet fever, many
years ago, led me to similar conclusions. The table also
conclusive shows that the chance of death from an attack of
scarlet fever diminishes from birth up to the end of the third
year, then more slowly up to ten years of age, and afterwards
with great rapidity up to 35 years of age. It will also be seen
that whilst 229 children of both sexes died out of each 1000
oases under 5 years old, only 101 per 1000 cases died at the age
period of 5-10 ; 54 between 10-15 ; 37 between 15-20 ; and 35
between 20-25 years of age ; after which the fatality of the disease
increased up to 75 deaths per 1000 cases amongst persons who
were 35 years old and above.
The conclusions arrived at by the Registrar-General by a
consideration of these and some other tables are as follows:—
(1) The mortality from this disease is at its maximum in the
third year of life, and after this diminishes with age, at first
slowly, afterwards rapidly.
(2) This diminution is due to three contributory causes:
(a) the increased proportion in the population at each successive
age period of persons protected by a previous attack; (ft) the
diminution of liability to infection in successive age-periods of
those who are as yet unprotected; (c) the diminishing risk in
successive age-periods of an attack, should it occur, proving fatal.
(3) The liability of the unprotected to infection is small in
the first year of life, increases to a maximum in the fifth year, or
soon after, and then becomes rapidly smaller and smaller with
advance of years.
(4) The chance that an attack will terminate fatally is
highest in infancy, and diminishes rapidly with years to the end of
the twenty-fifth year; after which an attack is again somewhat
more dangerous.
(5) The female sex throughout life, the first year possibly
excepted, is more liable to scarlet fever than is the male sex.
(6) But the attacks in males, though fewer, are more likely
to terminate fatally.
Now it is sometimes said that the separation from its family
of a child who is attacked by scarlet fever is scarcely worth the
trouble and expense it involves, seeing that the rest of the children,
though they may escape on that special occasion, are almost certain
to contract this very common disease at some future time, and may
therefore as well, if not preferably, have it at once. The results,
however, to which this statistical inquiry has led us, are completely