London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
View report page
Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Kensington 1897
Annual report on the health, sanitary condition, &c., &c., of the Parish of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington for the year, 1897
This page requires JavaScript
34
DIPHTHERIA.
Cases of diphtheria (322) and membranous croup (10) to
the aggregate number of 332 were notified, as compared with
268, 365, and 371, in the preceding three years successively:
viz., 229 in North Kensington, and 103 in South Kensington.
The deaths registered were 82 (as compared with 75, 89, and
72, in the preceding three years respectively), being 15 above
the corrected decennial average (67): 70 of them belong to
the Town sub-district, and 12 to Brompton ; 60 to North
Kensington, and 22 to South Kensington. Fifty-one of the
deaths took place at hospitals, to which 237 cases were
removed. The case-mortality was 24.7 per cent., and was
considerably higher in the home cases (32.6 per cent.) than in
the hospital cases (21.5 per cent.) The probable explanation
of this difference is that the antitoxic treatment is more
generally practised in hospital than at home. The proportional
mortality varies from year to year within somewhat
wide limits. In 1895 the deaths in hospital cases were at the
rate of 20.1 per cent. on notifications, the rate in home cases
being 34.2. In 1896 the mortality was only 14.7 in hospital
cases, as compared with 27.1 per cent. in home cases. In
1894, before antitoxin was used, the case-mortality was nearly
the same in home and hospital cases, viz., 28.3 and 27.7 per
cent. respectively. It should be explained that the percentage
mortality in hospital cases is calculated upon true diphtheria,
whereas in home cases the calculated mortality is based on
notified cases—a very different thing, having regard to the
large proportion of cases of mistaken diagnosis; so that the
proportional success of treatment at the hospitals is even
greater than represented by the most favourable of the above
figures.
In London, as a whole, the deaths were 2,261 (222 above
the corrected decennial average, 2,039), as compared with
2,670, 2,316, and 2,683, in the preceding three years
respectively. The total notifications were 12,811, as compared
with 10,655, 10,772, and 13,361, in the preceding three years
successively.