View report page

18
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1914.
Whooping-cough.
The deaths from whooping-cough in the Administrative County of London during the year 1914
(52 weeks) numbered 918 as compared with 800 in 1913 (53 weeks).
The death-rates from this disease in 1914 and preceding periods per 1,000 living of all ages and
per 1,000 aged 0—5 are given in table I., page 40.
The death-rate in each year since 1840 in relation to the mean of the period 1841-1914 is shown
in diagram (0), while the deaths in each month since 1890 in relation to the mean monthly deaths of
the period 1891-1914 are shown in diagram (H) facing page 14.

Whooping
Cough in
London
boroughs.
It will be seen from the foregoing table that in the period 1909-1913 the highest whooping-cough
death-rate was that of Shoreditch (0 41), and the lowest that of the City of London (0.10); in the year
1914, Finsbury (0.53) had the highest death-rate and Kensington (0.04) the lowest. The whoopingcough
death-rates in London in each of the four quarters of the year 1914 were as follows: first quarter,
0.25; second quarter, 0.28; third quarter, 018; and fourth quarter, O.11.
Whooping cough was made compulsorily notifiable in the Boroughs of Greenwich, Holborn and
Lambeth. The notification which was thus made available duplicates the information already obtained
through the school organisation; indeed, the latter covers a wider field, particularly in the direction
downward in the social scale involving cases in which a doctor is not called in. It is in these cases that
the necessity for action is by far the more urgent.
An investigation has been made in respect of all the houses known to be invaded by whooping
cough in Lambeth in the months of September, October and November, 1914. A total of 180 such
houses were known to the sanitary authority either through the school organisation or through compulsory
notification. Of these 129 or 72 per cent, were discovered through the schools, and 96, or 53 per cent,
through compulsory notification. Thus no fewer than 84 cases or 47 per cent, of the total were cases
in which no doctor was called in and they were known through the school alone. Of the 45 cases in which
notification overlapped, in 20 cases the school organisation had informed the sanitary authority before
the doctor had been called in.
Typhus.
There were no deaths from typhus in the Administrative County of London during the year
1914. The death-rates from this disease in successive periods since 1870 are given in table I, page 40.
The typhus death-rate in each year since 1868 in relation to the mean death-rate of the entire
period 1869-1914 is shown in diagram (P).
Only one case of typhus fever was notified during 1914, and this did not originate in London.
The patient was a Belgian soldier who was taken ill on 22nd October, 1914, and brought over to this
country from the trenches in Flanders. He was admitted to No. 2 General Hospital, Chelsea, on
1st November, with a temperature of 105 deg. A rash developed on 4th November, and the patient
was removed on 5th November to one of the Metropolitan Asylums Board's hospitals, where the disease
was subsequently diagnosed as typhoid fever.
Typhoid Fever.
The number of cases of typhoid fever notified in the Administrative County of London during
1914 (52 weeks) was 789, compared with 758 in the year 1913 (53 weeks). The deaths from the disease
numbered 147 in 1914 (52 weeks) compared with 114 in 1913 (53 weeks). The death-rates, case-rates
and case-mortality in 1914 and preceding periods are given in tables I. and II., pages 40 and 41.
The death-rate in each year since 1868 in relation to the mean death-rate of the period 1869—
1914 is shown in diagram (Q). The notified cases in each week of 1914 mav be compared with the
average weekly notifications of the period 1890-1914 on reference to diagram (it). The monthly caserate
and case-mortality in each of the years 1891-1914 in relation to the mean of the whole period
is shown in diagram (S).