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During the year, 37 cases (i.e., 12.8 per cent.) notified as
diphtheria and removed to hospital were found not to be suffering
from the disease, and were discharged to their homes.
A slight outbreak of diphtheria occurred amongst the pupils
attending a High School in the Borough. Swabs were taken from
a large number of children in the affected classroom, and in several
instances children were found showing evidence of the presence,
on bacteriological examination, of the diphtheria germ in the nose
or throat or both. On the exclusion of these children, who were
either removed to the isolation hospital or kept under medical
observation at their homes, the outbreak, which resulted in seven
cases being notified, was stopped.
Six hundred and forty-seven bacteriological examinations of
suspected cases of diphtheria were made during 1913, as compared
with 554 in 1912 and 384 in 1911. In 138 a positive, and in 509
a negative, result was obtained.
Enteric Fever.
During 1913, 15 cases of enteric fever were notified in the
Borough, as compared with 20 in each of the two previous years.
Six deaths were registered from the disease, giving a casemortality
of 40 per cent. and a death-rate per 1,000 population
of 0 03.
This was the lowest number of cases ever recorded in the
Old Parish and Borough of Battersea.
In the following table are set out the case-rate, death-rate, and
case-mortality from enteric fever in the Old Parish and Borough
of Battersea since 1891:—