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17
For the first time since my appointment there has not been
any death from small-pox of an inhabitant of the district for four
oonsecutive years, the one death in 1886 having occurred in the
person of a tramp who sickened on the day he entered the casual
ward of the Hackney Workhouse. Measles caused 66 deaths,
but these were fewer than in any year since 1884. The cold
weather in the early part of the year was not attended with so
large a mortality from this disease or from inflammatory
diseases of the lungs as I should have expected. In 1888 the
deaths from measles reached the large number of 128. From
scarlet fever tbe mortality was small, as 41 deaths only were
registered during the year, against 58 in 1889, and 55 in 1888.
As the disease has been comparatively quiescent for three years,
the average for 10 years having been 76, it is probable that it
will be epidemic to a greater or a less extent in the autumnal or'
winter months of 1890. In all London the deaths from this
disease in the years 1887-89 were 1,443, 1,209, and 784
respectively, which were more than in 1885 and 1886, when
the deaths were only 722 and 690; whilst in Hackney the
number of deaths in 1886 was in excess of those in either of
these three years. This shows that scarlet fever differs in its
death-rate in different districts at the same time. Diphtheria
has already been discussed, so I need not refer to the high
mortality except to point out that this disease has been on the
increase in this district since 1885, when only 29 deaths were
registered; but as a similar prevalence has occurred in all
London, it is evident that some general cause has been in
operation to produce the excess. Part of this may have
arisen from the tendency to assign a death to a prevailing.