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14
Authority shall continue to be afforded their co-operation and assistance,
for I can assure them that these are of the very greatest service, and can
only tend to promote the health, and to preserve the lives, of the thousands
of children for whose education they are responsible and in whose welfare
they naturally take an interest.
The death rate (0.36) of the district from this disease compared
favourably with that (0.55) of London, and it was almost the same as that
of the large towns (0.33), in some of which, however, the death rate was
exceptionally high. Thus in West Ham it was 0.85 per 1,000, in
Wolverhampton 0.65, and in Burnley 0.72.
When, however, I turn to these large and populous places, which I
tabulated on page 7, I find the death rates from diphtheria were as
follows, and that the returns as a whole were considerably better than
our own or of London.
West Ham 0.85 per 1,000 inhabitants
Islington 0.36 „ „
Salford 0.33 ,, ,,
Birmingham 0.25 ,, ,,
Liverpool 0.23 ,, ,,
Newcastle 0.23 ,, „
Bristol .. 0.16 ., ,,
Hull 0.15 „ „
Sheffield 0.14 ,, ,,
Leeds 0.14 „ ,,
Bradford 0.09 ,, "
Manchester 0.08 ,, ,,
Nottingham 0.07 ,, ,,
To account for the great difference in the death rates of the several
communities affords food for reflection, for it is certainly strange to find
such places as Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol, Nottingham,
Bradford and Hull, with death rates so low, as to almost mean the
immunity of their towns from the disease.
It is even more extraordinary still to find from the Registrar-General's
returns that there was not a single death from Diphtheria during the
third quarter in Plymouth, Blackburn, Preston or Sunderland, a town
with which I was so long connected as its Medical Officer of Health.
I intend to treat this subject more fully in my Annual Report for 1895.