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6
the sickness in the hanover and mayfair
sub-districts.
During the first quarter of 1864, the number of persons
who obtained medical relief from the Parochial Surgeons,
and at the Dispensary, Mount-street, and in the Sick
Wards of the Workhouse, Mount-street, was 1139.
Amongst them were 5 cases of small-pox, 2 of chickenpox,
3 of measles, 3 of scarlet fever, 5 of whoopingcough,
19 of diarrhæa, 1 of ague, 15 of continued fever,
(or feverish maladies of various grades, some very slight,)
4 of erysipelas, 331 of bronchitis and catarrh, 5 of pneumonia,
and one of carbuncle.
Since the chief use and purport of our office is to check
the epidemic class of diseases, it is our great anxiety to learn
all the facts attainable respecting them, so as, if possible, to
deduce the laws. But we are baffled. We can explain their
spread by infection or contagion; but why they should come
as they do, flourish for a time with great virulence, and then
vanish, is as yet an impenetrable mystery. As we stated at p.
7 of the foregoing Report, No. XXV., measles and scarlatina,
which had been prevalent during the Summer and Autumn, disappeared
from the Hanover and Mayfair Sub-Districts in
December, and have scarcely shown themselves since amongst
the poor in these Sub-Districts. It is true that we may
claim something for the active cleansings instituted in houses
where these diseases are ascertained to exist; but we must
not claim too much on this score, because we found last
Autumn that scarlet fever sometimes appeared in houses
just after they had been cleansed for small-pox.
Be this as it may, the fact remains, that the high mortality
of these Sub-Districts during this quarter, was of an
unusual sort, inasmuch as it fell upon adults, and was caused