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9
carried out in order to try and prevent other children living
in the same house from contracting the infection, in houses
without sufficient room to provide isolation accommodation,
and for the convenience of the workers residing in these
houses.
Seventeen of the twenty-two cases were removed to
Hospital, in three instances removal to the Hospital was refused.
Isolation Hospital Accommodation.
For some years past the Council have had an Agreement
with the Ealing Borough Council to take into their Isolation
Hospital cases of scarlet fever and diphtheria from Greenford
that may be approved of by their Medical Officer of Health,
at a sum which has been reduced to 2½ guineas per patient
per week; as the average time a case is detained in Hospital
is about 6 weeks, this means about 15 guineas per case, or
for this District a halfpenny rate per case; so that a few
cases of either of these diseases, diphtheria or scarlet fever
occurring during the year make a considerable difference in
the amount of the rates for that year in which an unusual
number of cases occur.
Scarlet Fever.
Until last year when we had four cases of scarlet fever
we had had none notified for 4 years . During the past 10
years 29 cases were notified, and during the previous 10 years,
1894 to 1903, 21 cases only were reported, so that the average
number of cases notified during the past 20 years is 2.5 per
year. The tendency is for the number of cases to increase
even more than in proportion to the increase in the population
on account of the changing conditions of the District which is
becoming more residential in character. The increased
facilities for the disease being imported.
The increase in the number of athletic clubs and
recreation grounds, which attract large numbers of pe ple from
other Districts. The increased facilities for travelling, and
also by means of Schools, newly erected in other Districts
which have so increased as to encroach on our boundaries,