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103
Whooping Cough.
Whooping Cough, like measles, is a very fatal disease
of childhood, especially to very young children. During
1907, in the Borough of Battersea, 62 deaths from this disease
were registered, as compared with 78 in 1906. The deaths
were 10 below the average for the preceding ten years, and
were equivalent to a death-rate of .34 per 1,000, as compared
with .40, the mean death-rate for the previous ten years.

It will be noted, as showing the influence of environment,
that North-West Battersea suffered most, and South-West
Battersea least from the disease.
The death-rate per cent. under one year of age was 37.2,
and from one to five years 62 8 per cent. The total percentage
fatality under five years of age was 100.
The extremely fatal character of this disease to children
under five years of age is strikingly exemplified in the above
figures. The disease, like measles, is especially dangerous
to children of tender years, mainly spreads through the medium
of the infant departments of the Public Elementary Schools,
and this fact provides a strong argument, in my opinion,
against the attendance at school of children under at least five
years of age.
It is very difficult to get the mothers of children suffering
from measles and whooping cough to recognise the serious
nature of these diseases. The old traditions in regard to
them are still maintained, and rarely are any steps taken to
secure isolation or to obtain medical aid, especially amongst
the poorer classes, until too late.