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55
The deaths in the 454 cases sent to hospital numbered 11, a mortality
of 2.4 per cent.
In the 11 cases treated at home, there was one death, a percentage
of 9.1.
It is our practice to spray the room 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 annual death-rate per 1,000 was .06.
DIPHTHERIA.
During the last ten years this disease has steadily increased both in
the number of cases notified and in the number of deaths.
It is difficult to assign this to any particular cause. There is no
record of exceptional house dampness or sewer floodings in any part of
the borough, although much of the borough is low-lying. There is
certainly a large increase in the number of families housed in ordinary
premises. Some of the houses containing as many as five, six and seven
families in each. All this tenement overcrowding must favour the spread
of Diphtheria.
The total number of cases notified including Membranous Croup,
was 387, as against 338 for 1914.
The deaths from the disease numbered 37, the same as last year.
The percentage of deaths to the cases notified was 9.5.
The annual mortality per 1,000 living was 0.20.