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Cases notified per 1,000 of the Population.
9 years 1890-8 inclusive 4.94
9 years 1899-07 do. 3.83
That is a reduction of more than 22 per cent. of the former period.
Mortality per cent, of Patients treated in the Metropolitan Asylums
Board Hospitals.
9 years 1889-97 inclusive 6.3 per cent.
9 years 1898-1906 ,, 3.3 per cent.
Reduction nearly half.
Mortality Bate per 1,000 of the Population.
9 years 1889-97 inclusive 0.22 per 1,000
9 years 1898-1906 do. 0.10 per 1,000
Reduction more than half.
These statistics are very satisfactory as to the mortality per centage of
patients treated, and the mortality rate per 1,000 of the population, and show
a fairly satisfactory reduction of the number of cases notified.
Scarlet fever is certainly much less virulent than it used to be. The
great majority of cases of recent years have been of a very mild type. I think
isolation hospitals have probably tended to produce this diminished virulence,
as the more severe cases have, for many years, been removed to hospital, and
during recent years an increased number of mild cases also, so that only comparatively
mild cases, and those which on that account have not even been
diagnosed, and those in which a doctor was not called in, have been left to
spread infection.
I may also mention that many scientific researches have been conducted
for the Local Government Board respecting the bacteriology etc., of scarlet
fever, and the results have been published in the Annual Reports of the
Medical Officer of the Board. Various expert inquiries, particularly respecting
"Return " cases, have been made during recent years by the Metropolitan
Asylums Board. It is desirable that such researches should be extended.
I therefore quite agree with Dr. T. Orme Dudfield, the Medical Officer of
Health for Kensington, that there is no cause for alarm, and I trust, should
the Local Government Board decide to comply with the request of the
Managers, that satisfactory results will be obtained.