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2
3 occurred in one house in the Sussex Road; 2 in one family at
11, Church Street; 2 in two families at 3, Alfred Place, Balls Pond;
and 2 in two families at 10, Angler's Gardens. Thus, out of the whole
number, 6 families in 4 houses supplied 9 fatal cases ; and, of the other
18 cases, 5 occurred in streets or houses where fatal cases had already
occurred at an earlier period of the year. Few morbid poisons are
more subtle, few more difficult to eradicate from a locality, than this.
Where persons in crowded houses, suffering from scarlet-fever, are
visited by the District Medical Officers, facilities are afforded them,
which they are urged to accept, for removal to the Fever Hospital.
I have placed myself in communication with the Committee of the
Islington Dispensary, with a view to obtaining similar aid from them
in the removal of patients attended by their officers. (For other
necessary precautions, see my Report for October, 1859.) There
have been 5 deaths from diphtheria registered.
The amount of general sickness, as registered at the several institutions
from which I receive returns, has been 2030 cases. Measles,
scarlet fever, and whooping cough have all three been more prevalent
than in August; the weekly numbers recorded by the parochial officers
and Dispensaries being of Measles, 9, 15, 10, 11, and of scarlet fever,
7, 8, 3, 7. The cases of catarrh and pulmonary inflammation have, as
usual at this period of the year, become more numerous, much more so
than in October last year.
EDWARD BALLARD, M.D.,
Medical Officer of Health.
Vestry Offices,
November 5th, 1860.