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17
District.
1894. There were 138 cases notified, also a slight increase
on the previous year. In this, as in previous years, there
have been a number of cases of enteric fever that have
been developed outside the district, the sufferers coming
back ill from other places. There were also two cases of
continued fever notified, but no deaths.
Puerperal
Fever.
Six were notified and there were six
deaths. It seems highly probable that there were
other cases which were not notified, and this it is impossible
in any way to check.
Erysipelas.
221 cases were notified and there were
five deaths.
Measles.
There were only 27 deaths from this cause,
a smaller number than in any year of this decade. There
has, therefore, probably not been much measles during the
year. Nevertheless it is certain many of these 27 children's
lives (they were all under five years of age) should
have been saved if proper management of the illness had
been carried out from the first. In this connection the
subject of the advisability of the notification of measles
arises, and also the advisability or otherwise of the establishment
of isolation hospitals for measles. It is of course
the ease at present that even very bad cases of measles
cannot be received into any hospital or union infirmary,
and, however wretched the surroundings, there the child
must remain until it dies or gets better, all the time
causing a large crop of other cases round about. The
amount of hospital accommodation that would be necessary
to cope with measles in London is very commonly
exaggerated, it being estimated in the same ratio
as for scarlet fever; but it is probable that an average
stay by the patient of three weeks in hospital wrould
be all that Mould be necessary, so that only one-third of
the number of beds in proportion to the number of cases
C