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The information as to scarlet-fever mortality in the Borough in the fifty-two years 1856-1907
set out in Appendix II. (Tables B, C, D, pages 109 and 110), shows the great reduction in the
fatality of this disease in recent years.
In view of the continued prevalence of scarlet fever in London, notwithstanding the extensive
isolation accommodation provided, the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board towards the
end of the year passed a resolution inviting the Local Government Board to cause an inquiry to be
instituted into the cause of this disease, and as to whether any, and if so what, furthermeans can be
adopted for its prevention. It may not be out of place therefore to observe that, despite the
keeping-up of the numbers of cases notified, the disease has of late years undergone a marked
change for the better, as indicated by diminished virulence of type. This fact may be illustrated
by comparison of the number of deaths in London in two years shortly before the Asylums
Board provided hospital accommodation for sufferers, and the number in the last two years. The
deaths in 1869 and 1870 were 5,841 and 6,040—1,839 and 1,875 per million persons living respectively—the
population being approximately 3,200,000. In 1906 and 1907, the deaths numbered 533
and 644—113 and 136 per million persons living—the population being approximately 4,750,000.
At page 31 a table of notifications of scarlet fever for every year since 1890 is given. The
numbers fluctuate a good deal; the maximum 37,000, was attained in 1893, in which year the
deaths were 1,590; the lowest number, 11,398, was recorded in 1891 (the deaths were 598), the
next lowest (12,536) in 1903, in which year only 356 deaths were registered from this cause in a
population of more than 4,600,000. In 1907 the notifications were 26,000; the deaths 645, and 113
above the corrected decennial average; but they were less than a thirteenth of the numbers
registered in 1869 and in 1870, after correction for increase of population. Obviously, therefore,
there is no cause for alarm; but the inquiry will doubtless yield interesting results—should the
Local Government Board comply with the request of the Managers.
DIPHTHERIA.
The cases notified as diphtheria (including membranous croup, classified by the RegistrarGeneral
with diphtheria) were 234; compared with 186, 125, and 164, in the preceding three years;
150 in North Kensington and 84 in South Kensington. The deaths were 24 (a case-mortality of
10.3 per cent.) and 7 below the corrected decennial average (31); 19 in the Town sub-district,
and 5 in Brompton. Nineteen of the deaths took place in hospitals, to which 204 cases were
removed—a case-mortality of 9.3 per cent. Fourteen of the deaths were of children under five years
of age.