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for perpetuation of the supply of lymph. I fear I am not making a very popular
suggestion here, but I do it in the interest of the public health, that interest, which,
in my position, I am bound first to consider. It is for the Board of Trustees to reflect
upon this. Their motive for multiplying the stations as they have done is doubtless
most creditable, but founded upon a mistake. The only alternative to this restriction,
consistently with the public benefit, appears to be to throw open the public vaccination
to all practitioners who chose to work it, and to pay the fee prescribed by the
Act for every vaccination certified as successful by some independent Inspector.
Private interest on this arrangement would be enlisted in the public service, for young
unoccupied medical men might be expected readily to enter upon this branch of practice.
Still this is an arrangement which would be open to other and grave objections.
Measles.—One hundred and thirteen deaths occurred from this disease, the average
of the last four years being 77. The five Wards which constitute the southern half of
the Parish were those which furnished the greatest number (see Table III). Judging
from Table V. this malady has been more prevalent among the poor, as well as more
fatal than in either of the other three former years.
Scarlet Fever occasioned 135 deaths during the year; last year the deaths were 216.
The first and fourth quarters were those in which it chiefly prevailed. The number
of cases which were attended on behalf of the Parish and by the Holloway Dispensary
were 193; last year the cases thus attended amounted to 472. There has, therefore,
been a decline in the prevalence of this disease. I have frequently called attention to
the highly infectious character of scarlatina; let me add another fact which may
assist to impress upon the minds of the parishioners the important lesson in preventive
medicine which I have been so anxious to teach. Of the 135 fatal cases, 68
occurred in 30 streets, and 37 in 17 houses in those streets. In other words, out of
97 streets where scarlatina deaths took place there were 30 in which from 2
to 4 deaths occurred, and there were 17 houses where from 2 to 3 deaths
occurred. Measles is an infectious disease, but the difference in infection and
in fatality appears from this, viz., that while there were 18 streets, &c., in which 42
deaths occurred, or from 2 to 4 in a street, there were but 4 houses in which 2 deaths
occurred from measles in the year. Can I more strongly enforce my repeated warning
that cases of scarlet fever should be immediately isolated, and, where a house is at all
crowded, removed as soon as possible to the Fever Hospital? I cannot avoid
expressing a belief that had these ordinary precautions been taken, some, at least, of
these 37 lives sacrificed to scarlet fever might have been saved.
Whooping Cough.—This is another disease, the prevalence of which, as well as the
mortality occasioned by it, has been below the average. Of 92 deaths 35 took place
in the course of the last quarter of the year.
Fever.—The deaths attributed to continued and infantile fever, together,
amounted to 76 ; the mean of the previous four years being 82.
Bowel complaints, diarrhcea, dysentery, and cholera, together, occasioned only 80
deaths ; in former years the numbers were 120,147, 99, and 135. During the summer
quarter they proved fatal to only 49 persons, the number in previous summer being
83, 104, 65, and 109. The number of cases attended by the Parochial Surgeons also
shows the favourable influence of this remarkable season in relation to these disorders.
They amounted altogether only to 509, the number in former years being 1086, 669,
and 1058.