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58
[1902
SCARLET FEVER.
Only 40 deaths, or 15 less than the corrected average of the preceding
seventeen years, were known; and they were equal to a death-rate of 0.11 per
1,000 of the population. In London the death-rate was 0.12 per 1,000, in the
76 Great Towns 0.19, in the 179 Other Great Towns 0.14, and in the districts
encircling this borough 0.12.
In late years the decrease in the deaths from Scarlet Fever has been
remarkable, for the time has not long passed since they were many fold
what they now are. From 1851-60 the deaths averaged 119 per annum, from
1861-70 227, from 1871-80 142, from 1881-90 69, and from 1891-1900 53. The
reduction has been without doubt due to better sanitation, as well as to the
fact that larger numbers of patients are now taken to hospital for isolation
as well as cure, and by such isolation have prevented the disease from spreading;
for it must be recollected that personal infection, that is infection derived
directly from the patient, is a great factor in its causation.