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11
The number of cases of infectious disease certified in the Metropolis during the
year 1899 was 42,344, the attack-rate being 9.2 per 1,000 population.
The subjoined table contains a list of the infectious diseases which are required
to be notified to the Sanitary Authority, together with the numbers of cases certified
during the four quarters of the year, and the numbers and percentages of such cases
which were removed to hospital for treatment:—

As compared with 1898 there was a decrease in the number of cases of scarlet
fever, and an increase in the numbers of cases of diphtheria, enteric fever puerperal
fever, and erysipelas. The deaths from notifiable infectious disease numbered 121, as
compared with 96 in 1898, 136 in 1897, 135 in 1896, and 117 in 1895. Deaths from
scarlet fever show a decrease; from diphtheria, enteric fever, and erysipelas, an
increase. Deaths from infectious diseases which are notifiable were at the rate of 1.0
per 1,000 inhabitants, whilst the deaths from the principal zymotic diseases which are
not required to be notified, namely, measles, whooping cough, and diarrhoea, were at
the rate of 2.8 per 1,000 inhabitants. Compare also with the death-rate from
tuberculous diseases (see page 52).
METROPOLITAN ASYLUMS BOARD.
The hospitals of the Board receive cases of small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
and "fever" (enteric and typhus). The cases of these diseases certified in Shoreditch
numbered 902. The number removed for treatment to hospital was 740*. In the vast
*Of these cases, 44— namely, 25 of diphtheria, 2 of scarlet fever, and 17 of enteric feverwere
found, after sojourning in the hospitals, not to be, in the opinion of the medical officers,
suffering as certified.