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34
SCARLET FEVER.
The cases notified as scarlet fever were 474, as compared
with 525, 1,011, and 749, in the preceding three years successively;
viz., 312 in North Kensington and 162 in South Kensington.
The deaths were 23, and eight below the corrected
decennial average (31); 18 and 5 in the Town and Brompton
sub-districts respectively. Seventeen of the deaths were of
children under five years of age: one infant died in the first year
of life. Twenty-two of the deaths took place at outlying public
institutions, to which 361 cases were removed, and one at
home. The case-mortality was 4.8 per cent. (3.9 in 1897) ;
viz., 6.1 per cent, in hospital cases and 0.8 per cent, in home
cases. The deaths in the preceding three years from this
cause were 27, 39, and 29, respectively.
The deaths in London, as a whole, were 583 (as compared
with 829, 942, and 780, in the preceding three years
successively) and were 438 below the corrected decennial
average (1,021). Of the 583 deaths, 494 or nearly 85 per cent.,
took place in public institutions. The cases notified numbered
16,917, as compared with 22,876 in 1897, 25,638 in 1896,
19,757 in 1895, 18,440 in 1894, and 36,901 in 1893. The mortality
was 3.4 per cent on cases notified, the same rate as in
1897, and as compared with 3.7 in 1896; 4.1 in 1895 ; 52 in
1894, and 4.3 in 1893. The case-mortality in hospitals (admissions,
12,456, deaths, 494), was 40.6 per cent.
The tables on page 35 show the degree of prevalence of
the disease in the parish, and in London, as a whole, in 1898
and 1897, as indicated by the number of notifications, and of
deaths registered, in thirteen successive four-weekly periods,
as set out in my reports.