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Parish of Clapham. 43
also, is put on parents to send children to school, and this,
no doubt, at times leads to the spread of infectious illness,
though it is impossible to find fault with the system of
looking up the absentees promptly and persistently.
With regard to deaths from Diphtheria, there was a
great and satisfactory fall in 1900. Only seven deaths
occurred, as compared with 25 in 1899. We have to go
back to 1891 to find as small a number. The death-rate
per cent, of cases reported was only 5'4, a remarkable fall
from preceding years as shown by the following figures
Percentage of Deaths to cases reported.
1893. 1894. 1895. 1896. 1897. 1898. 1899. 1900.
28.2 30.9 16.9 17.6 23.1 14.4 13.0 5.4
This shows that Diphtheria was remarkably milder,
besides being less prevalent in this than in former years.
It is not possible to say how much of this difference may
be due to the reporting of a large number of cases of mild
throat illness, but my experience shows that this is the
case to a considerable extent. Tho reliance that is now
placed on the finding of the bacillus supposed to be the
cause of Diphtheria in the throats of patients, as being
absolute proof of the existence of the disease, certainly
tends to increase the number of cases reported. We
should consider this a good thing, and we may to some
extent modify our views as to the dread import of the
term "Diphtheria." It must also be recognised that the
treatment of Diphtheria is now greatly improved, and
some of the credit of these figures should rightly be
attributed to this.
There is a remarkable difference in the mortality from
this disease between Clapham and the whole of London.
The death-rate per thousand in Clapham was 0T32, and
in the Metropolis 0.335, or less than half as great.