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the expense of the Vestry, cases of Diphtheria which had been
brought to the hospital instead of returning them to their own
homes. This course had been for a long time adopted with
regard to the other dangerous infectious diseases, and had
been found to be of considerable service to the parish.
The question was raised in the Vestry whether general
hospitals might not be expected to receive into their wards
persons suffering from diphtheria, and the circular letter sent
was intended to elicit an opinion how far this was desirable,
but of twenty-three replies from the Medical Officers of Health
on this point, twenty-one condemned the practice of placing
cases of diphtheria in a ward devoted to persons suffering
from general diseases.
Although the Vestry did not immediately agree to the
proposal made to them, they have since approved of cases of
diphtheria being sent to the London Fever Hospital. That
they have acted wisely in this respect there is no doubt, for
diphtheria is not only infectious, but is a very fatal malady,
and connot with safety be treated in houses occupied by many
people.
As evidence of the infectiousness of diphtheria, I may refer
to the behaviour of this disease in a house in Harmood
Street, Kentish Town, in November, where owing to the
retention in the house of one person suffering from this disease,
it spread to seven others, and caused the death of three.
Typhus.
But one death occurred from this disease in 1881, and
this took place in the London Fever Hospital, the person
who died being a woman aged 28 from the Somers Town
sub-district. During the year a serious outbreak of this
disease occurred in the adjoining Parish of Marylebone, but
fortunately did not extend to our own.
Enteric.
Enteric fever caused 66 deaths during the year, being in
the proportion of 13.2 per 1000 of total deaths from all causes,
or 3.1 deaths per 1000 deaths above the average of the preceding
ten years. In London Enteric fever caused 12 in every
1000 deaths from all causes, this being an excess upon the
average of the preceding ten years. Reckoned upon population
there were 2.7 deaths in St. Pancras for every 10,000
persons living.