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1909]
124
Not very long since the Medical Officer of Health was very much shocked
to hear that a medical practitioner, who, however, does not live in Islington, had
deliberately allowed one of his children to contract the disease from another of
his children who was then ill with the disease in a mild form. Such a proceeding
is one which is not altogether unknown among lay people,
who sometimes desire to have all their children "over" the Scarlet
Fever, especially if the first case be of a mild type. This is a very dangerous
proceeding if the children be very young, for the younger the child
when attacked, the greater the danger of death. In a table (LXXVIII.)
which has been prepared showing the deaths in age periods from
1893 to 1909, it is found that in children under one year of age there were 242
cases and 25 deaths, or 10.3 per cent.; in children between 1 and 2 years old
there were 772 cases and 84 deaths, or 10.9 per cent.; in children from 2 to 3
years old there were 1,396 cases and 115 deaths, or 8.2 per cent.; in children
from 3 to 4 years old there were 1,842 cases and 119 deaths, or 6.5 per cent.;
whilst amongst children from 4 to 5 years old there were 2,256 cases and 106
deaths, or 4.7 per cent. Altogether there were 6,873 cases under 5 years, of
which 449, or 6.5 per cent. died. These are average figures, but in the table
it will be noted that the percentages are often very much higher.
It will be noticed that as the age of the children increased, the fatality
among them decreased, until, instead of being over 10 per cent. among those
between 4 and 5 years old, as it was among infants under 12 months
old, it was only 4.7 per cent. When, however, the periods over
five years are examined, it is found that of 17,867 cases who had
reached that age, there were only 263 deaths, or 1.47 per cent.,
while of all cases in these years, numbering 24,740, there were 712
deaths, or 2.88 per cent. The moral of this is that, instead of
being anxious to get children "over" the disease as quickly as possible, every
effort should be made to postpone it or to ward it off altogether. It is not
merely that the fatality is greater when the child is young-, but there is always
the danger in any attack of the disease of sequelae of a most unpleasant character,
especially of those which involve the kidneys, and which may prove a lifelong
trouble to the patient, if they should not result in death at an early period.