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34
Zymotic Diseases.—In Table IV. will be found a
synopsis of the mortality which has occurred from infectious
diseases during the past decade, the population
of 1886 being 66,602; and that of 1876 about one-half
that number. It is necessary to remember this to be
able to judge fairly of the relative numbers.
Small-pox caused no death in the sub-district. Three
cases came under notice and were at once removed to
the Hospital Ships, the premises and clothing disinfected
with the result of absence of recurrence of the disease.
It is much to be desired that the Metropolitan Asylums
Board may be able to maintain the ships and the excellent
arrangements for transference of patients thereto,
instead of having recourse to the old system of inland
hospitals which were proved to be centres of infection
to the neighbourhoods in which they were situated.
The cost of maintenance, now that the first outlay has
taken place may be considered as a moderate premium
of insurance against this dreaded, loathsome, and fatal
disease.
Epidemic Diarrhoea was the most fatal of the zymotic
diseases during 1886, causing 82 deaths, some few cases
being returned as infantile cholera, a distinction without
any practical difference. The number of deaths from
this disease always corresponds very closely with the
duration of hot, dry weather, a lowered temperature or
abundant rainfall at once arresting an epidemic. This
points out the probability of the origin of the disease
from decomposing organic matter, more especially such
as is found in the modern system of house drainage into
sewers, both of which latter require frequent and copious
flushing. During its prevalence, drinking water and
all food under the influences of high temperatures are
found to prove to develope ptomaines or poisonous organic