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55
In the 8 cases treated at home, there was no death. The percentage
of deaths to the cases notified was l.6.
It is our practice to spray the room with formalin and to strip the
paper off the walls, in the process of disinfection after Scarlet Fever. In
the event of the room being verminous it is afterwards fumigated with
sulphur.
The annual death-rate per 1,000 inhabitants living was .02.
DIPHTHERIA.
This disease has still further increased during the year under consideration
both in the number of notifications and in the number of
deaths. The numbers are the highest for the last ten years. The
percentage of deaths to those treated at the Asylums Board's Hospitals,
viz,: 8.5, is not above the average for the last ten years. It is difficult
to state the cause of this increase The schools can hardly be held
responsible as the cases were pretty evenly spread among them. The
same may be said of the milk supply, as no one particular dairy more
than the rest was implicated. The flooding of basements of houses had
not increased. There had been a greater crowding together of children
in ill-ventilated places during the air raids and a general nerve unrest,
which may have rendered children more susceptible to the disease.
The total number of cases notified including Membranous Croup,
was 442, as against 387 for 1915.
The deaths from the disease numbered 41, as against 37 for 1915.
The percentage of deaths to the cases notified was 95.
The annual mortality per 1,000 inhabitants was 0 23.