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34
Variable factors of the disease. It has also been shewn
that the frequency and fatality of this disease increases
with a high temperature of the source of the water
supply, in this case the River Thames, and as long as
this is the chief source of supply so long will these
conditions induce outbreaks of bowel disorder.
As usual the victims were chiefly young children, the
majority fed by hand. Seventy died under one year,
and eighteen between one and five years. All water
and milk should be boiled before being given to young
children, especially during an epidemic of diarrhoea.
Whooping Cough.—This was a very fatal form of
disease, 58 deaths having arisen therefrom, in the
majority of cases pneumonia or convulsions are certified
as the proximate cause of death.
Measles.—Thirty-three deaths were registered from
this disease. Many other cases, however, were included in
the deaths from Whooping Cough, a close alliance
appealing to prevail between the two diseases.
The two diseases combined caused 91 deaths, and
unfortunately, Sanitary Authorities have at the present
but the very slightest control over their spreading, there
being no hospital provision for such cases, where sufficient
isolation cannot be obtained ; and if this existed there
is no power of removal. The same control that exists
over Small-pox, Scarlet Fever, and Enteric Fever, all of
which formerly caused an immense amount of illness,
suffering and death, and which an efficient system of
isolation or removal has sufficed to check, were at one
time an equally hopeless task to the Sanitarian. Public
opinion, which resisted removal to hospital at first even
for Small-pox, has recently become more amenable to