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24
The small number of admissions to the hospital is due to
the following circumstances:—
(a.) That there were only 27 cases notified in the District
for the whole year, and that in the 16 cases not removed to hospital,
efficient home isolation was procurable.
(b.) During the years 1893, 1894, scarlet fever was so
exceptionally prevalent that a considerable number of children
were protected by a previous attack.
Owing to the Scarlet Fever Hospital standing empty for a
considerable period, 2 cases of Typhoid Fever were also
admitted and treated there.
Of the 27 Cases of Scarlet Fever, the infection appears to
have been contracted at school in 6 instances.
Of the 22 cases of Diphtheria, 7 appear to have
originated from the defective drainage in the homes of the
patients.
Vaccination.
Unhappily each year shows an increase in the country
generally in the numbers of those children who escape vaccination.
This growing evasion of the Vaccination Acts may partly
be explained by the action of many Boards of Guardians in
abstaining from prosecuting defaulters until the Royal Commission
has reported. Any unnecessary further delay in the
appearance of this Report will be very regretable, as it will become
more and more difficult to reinforce compulsory vaccination, if,
as is almost a certainty, the Commission reports in favour of that
measure.
Nearly 15% of the children born in 1894 were unvaccinated,
and doubtless the percentage is higher for 1895. It is to be
hoped that the recent experience of residents at Gloucester will
serve as a serious object lesson to those who lend an ear to the
mis-statements of anti-vaccinators.