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20
SEPTIC DISEASES.
SEPTIC DISEASES.
This general heading includes "puerperal fever " and "erysipelas "—forms of septic infection
which are scheduled for notification—and diseases such as pyaemia, infective endocarditis, &c.,
commonly grouped together under the sub-heading " other septic diseases," of which nothing is
known save the number of deaths.
Puerperal Fever.—Last year 7 cases of this disease were reported, 2 in Harrow Road
Ward, 3 in Maida Vale, and one each in Church and Hyde Park. The number of cases reported
last year was equal to the average. The morbidity rates (per 1,000 persons) in the Borough and
the circumjacent districts are given in Table 6, but having regard to the fact that the disease is
limited to women and to the age period 15-45 years, not much value attaches to those rates. In
previous reports morbidity rates for the estimated numbers of women at child-bearing ages have
been given, but on this occasion the necessary data for making such estimates are wanting. As
substitutes for the morbidity rates based on the numbers of women, rates based on the numbers
of births registered have been taken out. Strictly speaking the rates ought to be based on the
numbers of confinements which, owing to the frequency of multiple births, would be smaller than
the numbers of children. Subject to that reservation, which implies that the rates slightly understate
the true frequency of the disease, the rates now submitted are, probably, the best available.
The rates for last year in the Borough and the circumjacent districts are given in Table 15. The
morbidity in Paddington (0.24) during the past year was the lowest but one of the series, that
of St. Marylebone (0.16) being the lowest. Last year's rates were generally higher than the
average, that for the Borough being, however, only 0.0l in excess. The districts in which last
year's rates were below the averages were Kensington and St. Marylebone.
Of the seven attacks reported last year, three occurred in primiparie, all unmarried women,
two of them being unattended in their labour. Two of the children born to those women were
dead at birth, and the third required instrumental assistance (there was some laceration). There
was a history suggestive of gonorrhceal infection in one case at least. Of the four married
women two had normal labours, a third was delivered with the help of instruments (some
laceration), and the fourth was delivered of a dead child, she having chloroform and (presumably)
surgical help in labour. One woman was attended by a qualified midwife and the others by
medical men assisted (in two instances) by untrained women. Three of the married women
died, none of the unmarried. The fatality among the reported cases was, therefore, 42 8 per
cent., according to the Department's figures. The Registrar-General placed only two deaths
under this heading, giving a fatality of 28-5 per cent. (See Table 15.)

"Compiled principally from figures published in the Quarterly Reports of the Registrar-General,
† Per 100 births registered. ‡Per 100 cases notified.