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23
DIPHTHERIA.
There have been 177 deaths altogether; the death
rate for the various years has been as follows:—
1895 28.8 per cent.
1896 22.6 „
1897 24.8 „
1898 19.3 „
1899 14.8 „
1900 14.2 „
In 1899, at eight hospitals of the Metropolitan
Asylums Board, the average mortality was 15.38.
In the years 1888, 1889, 1890, the mortality was
much higher, being, in some of the large hospitals of
London, over 40 per cent.
About the year 1895, the plan of treating the
disease with Antitoxin Serum was recommended, and
it was in that year that I began to use it, although
the great importance of this mode of treatment, and
its early commencement, was not then recognised by
me, for I find in my report for that year, in some
remarks on the case of a child aged 16 months,
"Antitoxin was injected the second and third day
after admission, on the fourth day there was certainly