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15
different causes of impoverization, there is ultimately no other
way than to make an investigation into the conditions of every
household. This investigation, of course, has not been made
in Acton, but from the facts obtained in the investigation of
infectious diseases and of malnutrition in school children, it is
evident that poverty is an important factor in the causation of
an excessive mortality in the South-West Ward. As poverty
deepens, the death-rate rises at every age-group.
The diseases which respond most clearly to differences
of social position are in childhood those in which the fatality
depends most intimately on good nourishment and instructed
care, and particularly diseases of the digestive and respiratory
systems. As stated above, 24 out of 26 deaths from Diarrhoea
in infants under 12 months occurred in the South-West Ward;
from Enteritis, all the five deaths occurred there; from
Pneumonia, 8 out of 17, and from Bronchitis, 9 out of 11.
In later years it is lung disease which responds clearly and
unmistakably to poverty. It is, however, Phthisis which shows
the sharpest reaction and the widest differences. More than
one-half the deaths from Phthisis occurred in the South-West
Ward.
MEASLES.
In 1909, 40 deaths were registered as due to Measles, 39
of these deaths occurred in Acton, and one in the Children's
Hospital, Paddington Green.
A glance at the history of the disease in Acton reveals
some interesting points in its behaviour. With the exception
of Diarrhoea, Measles has been responsible for more deaths
than any two of the principal Zymotic diseases.
Though it is the most prevalent of all children's diseases,
and practically every child is susceptible to the disease, no
satisfactory plan of campaign has yet been formed against it.
Measles is one of the most difficult diseases to control, and the
means adopted for its prevention have not, up to the present,