View report page

16 scarlet fever.
SCARLET FEVER.
This disease continues to be unduly prevalent in the Borough. During the past year 629
notifications were received, equal to a morbidity rate of 4.15 per 1,000 persons. In 1908 the
notifications numbered 681 and the rate was 4.43. The mean rate for the five years 1904-08
was 3.49.
Nine years have passed since the Borough was constituted with its present limits. That
period may be divided into two four-year periods, viz., 1901-04 and 1906-09, separated
by the year 1905. In the middle year the morbidity rate from scarlet fever was as low
as 1.87 per 1,000. In the four years 1901-04 the rate averaged 2.80, and in the second
four years 4'31. No reason can be assigned for those differences, except a theory as
to periodic recrudescence of the disease. Owing to the alterations in the boundaries which
were made in 1900, there is much uncertainty attaching to the records and rates for years
anterior to 1901: and consequentlv they are not referred to.
In the Metropolis and districts circumjacent to the Borough (Table 5), the morbidity
rates from this disease were above the quinquennial mean rates, except in the Metropolis as
a whole (rate, 1909, 3.56; mean, 4'25) and Hampstead (rate, 1909, 2.74; mean, 2.95).
Fewer cases were reported last year than in 1908 in Oueen's Park, Harrow Road, and Maida
Vale Wards (Table 7), the greatest decrease (39 per cent.) being recorded in the last named.
The cases reported in each of the first three quarters of the year exceeded the average for
those quarters (Table 12). The autumnal increase in prevalence usually noted in the fourth
quarter did not occur in the Borough.
The 629 cases recorded last year included (in addition to the seven cases certified in the
first instance as diphtheria), 40 cases which were erroneously certified as scarlet fever. The
cases erroneously diagnosed constituted 6.3 per cent of the total, the average percentage
for the five years 1904-08, being 4.5. Of the 589 genuine cases of the disease 31 were deemed
to be due to infection acquired outside the Borough, and 40 to patients recently discharged
from hospital.

Two or more notifications were received from the same house on the same day
on 24 occasions, viz., two cases on 23, and three on one. In 22 houses two families were
infected in the same house, and in one three.