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25
It was pointed out in last year's report that social conditions
play an important role in the case-fatality of Measles,
and the above list will show how the disease is particularly
fatal amongst unfavourable surroundings.
Poverty re-acts on the case-fatality of Measles in many
ways. One authority asserts that a fire in the bedroom is one
of the most necessary items in the treatment of the disease.
Where poverty so great as to render this fire impossible exists,
the children develop complications which make the percentage
of deaths abnormally high.
The liability to complications is enhanced by the fact that
the employment of the mother renders efficient nursing
impossible. On the subsidence of the symptoms associated
with the eruptive stage the child is often left in the care of
some person in the house other than the mother or taken to a
neighbour's house to be looked after. In either case the same
care would not be taken to avoid exposure as would be
exercised by the mother.
Amongst the poor, medical attendance is obtained only in
a small minority of the cases. Out of 141 cases reported from
Southfield Road, in 69 there was a doctor in attendance ;
from Beaumont Park, out of 65 cases reported, a doctor
attended in 32 of them, and from Rothschild Road a doctor
was in attendance on 30 out of 61 cases reported.
In the Priory, on the other hand, out of 104 cases reported,
in 6 only was there a doctor in attendance, and in South
Acton, out of 64 cases notified, a doctor attended in 5 cases.
Doubtless many lives would be saved if all cases of
Measles which were seriously ill could have skilled attendance.
Facilities are wanting in many of the houses, not only for the
proper nursing of the sick, but also for the isolation of the
patients. A saving of life might be accomplished if a few
cases were selected for hospital treatment. It would be
impracticable to nurse even a majority of the cases in a