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remarked that the past year has seen a greatly in
creased proportion of cases of diphtheria removed to
hospital for isolation. As the Asylums Board will
not admit cases diagnosed as membranous croup,
unless they be qualified as "of a diphtheritic nature,"
it is possible that it has become more general to describe
such cases as diphtheria, for the sake of securing
admission to hospital. It is almost generally accepted
that the two terms describe but different manifestations
of the same morbid process.
In Table 8 the sickness-rates from each disease
have been set out for each sub-district, and each sex,
in the three age-groups, "0-5 years," "5 years and
over," and "all ages." A glance over the Table will
convey more than can be communicated in a short
paragraph. It will suffice here to note that for the
first time in the four years 1894-97, the rates from
scarlet and enteric fevers, at ages under 5 years, were
higher among females than males in the Parish as a
whole, the greater part of such excess being due to
the heavier incidence on females in North Paddington.
At ages over 5 years there was not last year that
marked difference between the rates for the two sexes
recorded in 1896. In North Paddington at ages under
5, the incidence of diphtheria was greater on males,
that from scarlet fever on females. In South Paddington,
there was a greater prevalence of all diseases
among males than among females.