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85
DISEASE.
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Mean Temp.
42.7
Mean Temp.
53.0
Mean Temp.
58.1
Mean Temp.
44.8
Small Pox ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Measles ... 1 ... 1 3 6 1 1 3 1 ... 1
Scarlatina 2 ... 1 ... 2 ... 1... ... ...1 1 1
Diphtheria 1... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 1
Whooping Cough 6 6 6 2 2 2 ... 1... ... 1...
Diarrhœa 1 1 1... ... 2 5 9 5 3 1 1
Fever 3... ...1111... ... 2 ... ...
Totals 13 8848 11 8 11 8744
29 23 27 15
The most direct and simple means for preventing
the spread of these diseases is "isolation," the separation
of the sick from the healthy. This has been long
and successfully employed against Small-pox and Fever,
and, latterly, but very partially only, against Scarlatina;
but to the present time Diphtheria, Whooping-cough,
and Measles have been totally unprovided for in the
hospitals, although Measles on an average is twice as
fatal, and Whooping-cough, three times as fatal as Smallpox.
A much more extended system of isolation, therefore,
is required before the present measures adopted for
the prevention of the periodical recurrence of this class
of diseases can be attended with any great amount of
success. (See Report for 1876, page 76 on this subject.)
Another very fertile means of the dissemination of
infectious diseases is the return to school of children
during convalescence from such diseases. This mode of
propagation is especially observable at the Board
Schools in which large numbers of children are massed
together, and so escape due observation.