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51
SCARLET FEVER.
Deaths 43. (Decennial average 29.)
Scarlet Fever has been prevalent during the whole
of the year, and 1,288 cases were reported with 43
deaths, twice as many as last year. One thousand
two hundred and forty persons suffering with this
disease were removed to hospital where 39 of them
died; 48 were treated at home with four deaths. The
case mortality on the whole number was 3.6 against
2.8 on the whole number of cases treated at the
Asylums' Board Hospitals during the year. Eighty
two of the patients sent to hospital were found not
to be suffering from Scarlet Fever and are therefore
not taken into consideration in these figures. All the
fatal cases except six were of young children aged less
than five years; the scarlet fever death rate is equal to
0.32 per thousand population at all ages, whilst that
of London is 0.14.
Five hundred and thirty two of the cases were
reported from the North-East sub-district and 756
from the South-West.
The homes of 795 of the patients were in a fairly
satisfactory condition, but in 103 the W.C.'s were defective;
in nine the drain inside the house was faulty;
in 27 the external drains were defective; six cases of
overcrowding were reported, and other sanitary defects
of a less serious character were noted m 261 instances ;
101 cases were removed from single room tenements.
On the whole the epidemic was of a mild character,
the symptoms were in many cases so trivial as to
permit the patient to be about during convalescence;