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53
By a perusal of the above table, and that of the more
comprehensive one which follows, and by comparing them
with those in former reports, it will be at once seen that
but for the great fatality attending Scarlet Fever, during
the past year, a general rate of mortality (due allowance
being made for increase of population) would have been
recorded of a very satisfactory character. The deaths from
Scarlatina in 1870 were 3 only. In the past year they
amounted to 21, an increase of 18 deaths from one Zymotic
disease in so short an interval (except in certain Cholera
years) having been seldom reported in this Sub-district. It
should be remarked also that this locality stands among
the Metropolitan parishes, by no means alone in presenting
for the past year a high rate of mortality from Scarlatina.
Throughout the country indeed the epidemic was
unusually severe and fatal, frequently causing two or
three deaths in the same family within a few days of
each other. In this Parish during the past year, there
were recorded no less than four instances of a double event
in death in the same family, due to this dreaded malady,
conclusively showing that when the poison of Scarlatina,
of so malignant a type as that recently observed, once
finds admittance into a dwelling crowded with delicate
young children, it becomes a most difficult matter to
confine the disease to the patient first attacked. It is
found next to impossible, too, in some families, to insure
the requisite care in the cleansing and disinfecting of
clothes, bedding, &c., and it is the experience of every
practitioner that nothing is more difficult, notwithstanding
their repeated admonitions, than for medical attendants
to induce parents to adopt the precaution of prompt
and rigorous isolation. While upon this subject, I can
but express my regret that so few sanitary authorities
have yet considered it expedient to carry into effect
the recommendations of their Medical Officers of Health,
to appropriate certain centrally situated buildings wherein
the disinfecting process by heat might be made thoroughly
available.