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Of the 775 cases notified in the present year, as many as 756
were removed to hospital, i.e., 97 5 per cent, as against 96 6 per cent, for
last year.
The deaths in the 775 cases sent to hospital numbered 23, a
mortality of 3-0 per cent, as against 2-7 per cent, for last year.
In the 19 cases treated at home, there was one death, a mortality of
5-3 per cent.
It is our practice to spray the room well with formalin and to strip
the paper off the walls in the process of disinfection after Scarlet Fever.
In the event of the room being verminous it is afterwards fumigated with
sulphur.
The Wards most affected were St. John's, St. Mary's, All Saints'
and St. Paul's, in the order named.
DIPHTHERIA.
The year under consideration has been been a record one in regard
to the small number of cases of Diphtheria notified. In Southwark for
upwards of twenty years past serious flooding of the low-lying parts has
occurred after heavy storms. This flooding, which consisted of sewage
forced up from the main sewers through the various gullies in cellars and
yards, on account of the sewers not being large enough to take the volume
of sewage from the higher parts beyond our district, seriously contaminated
the sandy subsoil of large portions of the Borough. This periodic fouling
of the subsoil was coincident with the increase of Diphtheria. Within
the last year a relief sewer has been constructed by the London County
Council, and since then no flooding has taken place. It will be interesting
to see how far Diphtheria declines in the next few years under this
altered condition.
The deaths from the disease numbered 32 as against 36 for the year
1907.