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Thirty-four cases notified as suffering from scarlet fever were found, after admission to hospital,
not to be suffering from any infectious disease at all, with the result that they were returned home.
During the past four years, the Borough has been comparatively free from scarlet fever and at
no time in this period has the disease existed in what might be described as epidemic form. The
mildness of the disease is reflected by the fact that there were only four fatal cases during 1926.
The deaths in the three preceding years were 2, 1 and 2.
Seven of the 298 cases of scarlet fever were patients in the same family as the person who had
within the previous twenty-eight days returned from a fever hospital after having been treated for
this disease. Cases of this kind are called "return cases" and very careful investigation was made
in each of the seven with a view to ascertaining the source of infection. A boy left hospital on the
23rd December, and on the following day developed a nasal discharge. He spent two or three
days at Christmas with friends at Hammersmith. Before the end of the year his sister and his
nurse developed scarlet fever and three of the children in the house at Hammersmith in which he
had stayed for Christmas developed this disease. All were removed to hospital. The boy himself
was sent back to hospital on the 29th December, and no further cases developed. This boy accounted
for two of the seven Kensington return cases. The three Hammersmith ones are not included in
the seven because they occurred outside the Borough. In the remaining five Kensington return
cases there was no evidence that the disease had been contracted from the patient who had just
returned from hospital.
Immediately on receipt of notification at the Town Hall that a person is suffering from scarlet
fever, the home is visited by the District Sanitary Inspector for the purpose of investigating the
source of infection, children in the house are excluded from school for 7 days and a pamphlet is
left at the home advising that a doctor should be called in if any other member of the family becomes
unwell, suffers from a sore throat or develops a rash.
Disinfection of the home and any articles likely to be infected is carried out on the day following
the admission of the patient to hospital, or in the case of a patient nursed at home, on the receipt
of a medical certificate that he is free from infection.
A child of school age is not allowed to resume school attendance until a fortnight has elapsed
since discharge from hospital or, in the case of a child nursed at home, a fortnight after the doctor's
certificate of freedom from infection has been received.
Diphtheria.—Four hundred and thirty cases were notified during the year, 422 of which were
removed to hospital.

Cases of mistaken diagnosis are not excluded from the above Table.
Thirty-nine cases notified as suffering from diphtheria were found after admission to hospital
not to be suffering from any infectious disease at all, with the result that they were returned home.
The disease appeared in epidemic form towards the end of the year, but the majority of cases
notified were of a mild type.
The number of Kensington deaths was twenty-two, representing a case mortality of 5.1%. In
the three preceding years, the deaths were 14, 15 and 10.
Seven patients developed diphtheria within twenty-eight days of a member of the household
returning from a fever hospital after having been treated for this disease. In each of two instances