View report page

21
SCARLET FEVER.
The cases notified as scarlet fever were 367, as compared with 749, 474, and 443 in the
three preceding years : 233 in North Kensington, and 134 in South Kensington. The deaths were
four, (the lowest number on record) and 24 below the corrected decennial average (28): 2 and 2 in
the Town and Brompton sub-districts respectively. Two of the deaths were of children under five
years of age. All of the deaths took place at outlying public institutions, to which 290 cases were
removed. The case-mortality was only 1.4 per cent. The deaths in the three preceding years
from this cause were 29, 23, and 10 respectively.
Detailed information as to scarlet fever mortality in the borough, 1856—1900, is set out
in Appendix I. (Tables B, C, and D, pp. 85-86), showing the remarkable reduction which has
taken place in recent years: concurrently, it must be added, with an increased fatality from
diphtheria.
The deaths from scarlet fever in London, as a whole, were 361 (the lowest number on record)
as compared with 780, 583, and 398, in the three preceding years, the corrected decennial average
being 915. Of the 361 deaths, 305, or more than 84 per cent., occurred in public institutions.
The cases notified numbered 13,812, as compared with 18,812 in 1899, 16,917 in 1898, 22,876
in 1897, 25,638 in 1896, 19,757 in 1895, 18,440 in 1894, and 36,901 in 1893. The mortality
was 2.6 per cent. on cases notified, against 2.2 in 1899, 3 4 in 1898 and 1897 ; 3.7 in 1896; 4.1 in
1895; 5.2 in 1894, and 4.3 in 1893. Upwards of 77 per cent. of notified cases were admitted to
hospitals. The case-mortality in hospitals (admissions, 10,692), was 2.94 per cent. These statistics
are satisfactory, indicating as they do not merely a diminished prevalence of the disease, but a
mortality so reduced as to suggest a favourable change in the type of the disease in recent years.
The subjoined table shows the degree of prevalence of the disease in the borough, and in
London, as a whole, as indicated by the number of notifications, and of deaths registered, in thirteen
successive four-weekly periods, as set out in my reports.

The notifications are taken from the weekly returns of the Asylums Board ; the admissions to, and the numbers in,
the hospitals, and the deaths in London, from the weekly returns of the Registrar-General.
For the sake of comparison, I subjoin the corresponding table for 1899, taken from the
report for that year.