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123 [1913
The cases now notified were also 238 above the average of the preceding
ten years, and were equal to an attack rate of 3.97 per 1,000 of the population,
as compared with a mean decennial rate of 3.29. High though this rate
undoubtedly is, it is only slightly above the aggregate attack rate of the
County of London, 3.81 per 1,000, throughout which the disease was unusually
prevalent. Indeed, some of the metropolitan boroughs felt its incidence
much more heavily than did Islington, for it will be noticed in Table LXXXIX.
that in no less than ten was the rate higher than in Islington, and in six it
was between 4.0 and 5.0 per 1,000, while in four others it was even higher than
the last figure. And just as the attack-rates varied in the several parts of the
county, so, also, did they vary throughout the country, where they averaged
3.57 per 1,000 of the population. Indeed, in some of the great towns its
incidence was excessively high, for in Birmingham and South Shields it
reached the very unusual proportion of 10.19 and 10.16 cases in every 1,000
of their inhabitants, while in many other towns the rates greatly exceeded
those of Islington and of the County of London; all of which goes to prove
that scarlet fever was unusually prevalent everywhere, or, in other words, that
1913 was a scarlet fever year.
In the Sub-Districts —Just as the incidence of the disease varied in
London and throughout the country, so, too, did it vary locally, for while the
cases represented an attack rate of only 2.12 per 1;000 in Barnsbury, they were
equal to a rate of 5.33 in Tollington. That part of Islington north of
Camden and Seven Sisters' Roads had the largest number of cases in proportion
to their populations, as the following figures show: —
Tufnell 179 cases = 5"i8 per 1,000
Upper Holloway 193 „ = 5.00 ,,
Tollington 162 „ = 5.33 ,,
The south-east of the Borough was also severely attacked, for in Islington
South-east sub-registration district there were 376 cases, which represent an
attack-rate of 4 91 per 1,000.