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38
St. Nicholas, 10 in Charlton, and 1 in Kidbrooke. Eight of the
patients were under treatment in Public Institutions in the district.
Scarlet Fever.—Two hundred and eighty-eight cases of
this disease were notified during the year, as compared with 214
and 164 cases, respectively, in the two preceding years; 117 cases
were in East Greenwich, 91 in West Greenwich, 19 in St.
Nicholas, 47 in Charlton, and 14 in Kidbrooke; 243 of these
cases were removed to the hospital for treatment. There were
only 5 deaths from this disease during the year.
Four of the cases removed to the hospital as suffering from
Scarlet Fever were returned as wrongly diagnosed; 3 were stated
to be suffering from Erythema and 1 from Measles.
The following are the particulars of the 12 cases which
would appear to be strictly within the meaning of the term
"return cases." This is a very much larger number than occurred
during the previous year, when only 3 cases were so described.
In this connection, one realises the very great difficulty experienced
by the Hospital Authorities in ensuring that the patients, at
the time of their discharge, and immediately afterwards, should not
be, nor become, infecting agents; for a child who has had some
oral or nasal discharge whilst in the hospital may have had such
complication cured, and be actually, at the time of the discharge,
in a non-infectious condition, but after returning home, and when
some few days or weeks have elapsed, may contract a cold which
again sets up the oral or nasal discharge of an infectious character.
Some patients have been kept in the hospital for as long as eleven
weeks or so, on account of one or other of these conditions, and
yet shortly after discharge the condition has reappeared; in some
cases this having been thought to be the origin of the return case.