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34
Annual Report of the London County Council, 1910.
The lesson to be learnt from the behaviour of measles at the present time is that if on a balance
of all considerations the aggregation of young children in schools is to be deemed to be a necessity
in London, the groups which are constituted should be as small as possible. In addition to the
reduction of risk to the individual child of exposure to infection which would result from the adoption
of this course, there would be the added advantage that in times of special prevalence of measles in
a locality, exclusion from school attendance could be limited to small groups of children. Obviously
aggregation of young children in Sunday schools should be subject to like control.
Scarlet Fever.
The cases of scarlet fever notified in the Administrative County of London during 1910 (52 weeks)
numbered 10,509, compared with 17,254 in 1909 (52 weeks). The number of deaths registered from
this cause was 214 in the vear 1910 (52 weeks), compared with 383 in 1909 (52 weeks).

The death-rate in each year since 1858 in relation to the mean death-rate of the period 1859—
1910 will be seen on reference to diagram (H). It will be observed that the death-rate of 1910 was
the lowest recorded in London.
The monthly case-rate and case-mortality in each of the years 1891-1910 in relation to the
mean of the whole period is shown in diagram (L).
It will be seen from the following table that in the period 1905-9 the London scarlet fever deathrate
was exceeded by that of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, West Ham, Salford and Leicester.

Scarlet fever
death-rates
in large
English
towns.

Scarlet fever
death-rates
in foreign
towns.
(a) The Infectious Disease (Notification) Act came into force in 1889.
(b) See footnote (c), page 8.