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Fever.
23
From Table 16 it will be seen that there were in the Borough last year 83 cases of enteric
and 1 case of simple continued fever, and in the Metropolis, 3,412 cases of enteric, 4 cases of
typhus, and 47 of simple continued fever.
There was some increase in the prevalence of enteric fever in the Borough amounting to
an excess of 6 per cent. above the decennial average (78 cases) whilst there was a slight
reduction in the Metropolis as a whole amounting to 5 per cent. (Sec Table 16). Simple
continued fever was less prevalent, but this disease, the true nature of which is always somewhat
doubtful, is never very much prevalent. Typhus fever is unknown in the Borough. In
the Metropolis the 4 cases reported last year were 11 below the average, a reduction equal
to 74 per cent. of the average. In comparison with the adjacent districts (Table 20) the
morbidity rate for the Borough last year (0.56) was above that for Kensington (0.45) and
that for Hampstead (0.53) but below all the others. The highest rate was that of
Westminster (0.72).
As regards the Registration Sub-Districts, last year's total for St. John (17 cases) was the
greatest in excess of the average (21 per cent.), and that for St. Mary, the lowest (1 per cent.).
Distributing the cases according to Wards, increases were noted in last year's returns, compared
with those for 1901, in Westbourne (increase 4 cases), Lancaster Gate, East, (4 cases),
and Hyde Park (2 cases).
The 84 cases reported in the Borough were reported from 76 houses, 73 houses having
one case each, 2 houses two cases, and 1 house three. With the exception of the streets
mentioned below the cases were distributed singly among the various streets of the Borough.

* All errors.
The cases reported included 10, which were subsequently found to have been erroneously
diagnosed, and of the remaining 74 cases, 16 were apparently infected beyond the Borough, 2
contracted their illness in hospitals, and 2 others from nursing patients ill with the disease. As
the disease is probably always contracted from contaminated food or water, it is important to
know how many of the patients had food outside the districts. A large number of those
attacked during the year were employed in other parts of London, and in 9 cases it was
ascertained that the patients were in the habit of taking their meals away from home. In
4 cases the patients were said to have had oysters within the period of the incubation of the
disease, I cockles, and 1 "ice-cream."
There of the patients were engaged in the wine and spirit trade, and one was a fishmonger.
One patient was reported as a hard drinker; another, a horse dealer, was carrying
on his usual avocation and travelling about the country for the greater part of his illness, a
form of the disease known as typhoid ambulans, and a third, a male of advanced age, was
reputed to be suffering from his third attack of the disease, but no history could be obtained
of the earlier attacks. In two instances, which terminated fatally, the result of the
bacteriological test was negative. In three cases the notification of enteric fever was
received either after death or on the same day as the patient died, a somewhat unusual
occurrence with this disease.