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16
Tt will be noted from the above table that there were 17 cases of diphtheria
in the Borough during the year, after correction of diagnosis, and one death. The
number of cases of diphtheria is, of course, low as compared with the number who
contracted the disease in pre-war years. Nevertheless it will also be noted that there
were 19 cases in 1947 and only 7 cases in 1948. In fact, apart from 1948, the number
of cases from 1947 onwards disappointingly remained approximately constant.
For the purposes of comparison a table has been constructed of the corrected
notifications for England and Wales, London and Islington since 1944.

Populations : (1951) Percentage—Islington of London 7.02
„ London of England and Wales 7.67
It will be apparent from this table that the percentage of corrected cases in
the County of London as compared with England and Wales increased gradually
to a maximum in 1949 and reached a figure which was substantially above the
proportion of population of London to England and Wales, but the London percentage
dropped to a low figure in 1951. Islington, however, occupies a different relative
position to London. It will be noted that up to 1948 the Islington percentages of
corrected diphtheria cases were consistently lower than the corresponding population
percentages in relation to London, and in 1948 there was the remarkably low total
of only 7 cases, or 2 per cent, of all London cases. In 1949, the Islington cases increased
to 17, or 7.69 per cent, of London cases, but in 1950 and 1951 the London cases
fell rapidly whilst the number of Islington cases remained almost constant. The
position therefore arose that in 1950 Islington supplied 23.5 per cent, of all London
cases and in 1951 it supplied 56.7 per cent., or over half of all the cases of diphtheria
in London!
On examination of the cases, it appears that in 1949 there were five cases in
one family; in 1950 there were again five cases in one family; and in 1951 there
were four cases in one family, two cases in a second family, and three cases in a
third family. Consecutive large family or group notifications of this character are
somewhat unusual and have tended to swell the figures. However, even allowing
for this factor, there were still more single diphtheria cases proportionately in
Islington in 1951 and 1950 than in the County of London.
Islington Outbreaks in 1951.
Four members of one family aged two years, three years, fourteen months and
twenty-five years respectively, contracted diphtheria about the same time. None