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54
Non-Notifiable Infectious Diseases.
Chicken-pox.
During 1921 there were 400 cases of chicken-pox
voluntarily notified, as compared with 615 in 1920.
Influenza.
The incidence of influenza in Battersea further declined in
1921. The number of deaths from the disease during 1921 was
45, with a death-rate of 0·27, as compared with 57 deaths and
a rate of 0·34 in 1920.
There were 86 cases of influenzal pneumonia notified during
the year, as compared with 77 in 1920.
Diarrhœa.
Acute infective diarrhœa was not unduly prevalent during
the year 1921, and having regard to the remarkably hot, dry
and prolonged summer which was experienced, conditions which
are usually regarded as being favourable to the causation and
spread of this dangerous disease of infant life, it is gratifying
to record that the number of deaths from diarrhœal disease
was only very slightly higher than that recorded in the
previous year.
The total number of deaths registered from diarrhœa in
Battersea during the year was 71, giving a death-rate of 0·42
per 1,000, as compared with 64 with a death-rate of 0·39 in
1920. The number of deaths of infants Under one year of age
from this cause (including enteritis) was 51, as compared with
48 in 1920.
The remarkable divergence, as shown by the records for
1921, from past experience in regard to the association of
infective diarrhœa with the meteorological conditions prevailing,
is difficult to explain. Hitherto it has been generally
recognised that weather conditions played a very important
part in the incidence and mortality from diarrhœal disease, a
hot, dry summer favouring the development of the causative
organism or organisms responsible for the disease. It was