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In 82 of the cases the patients were children attending school, and in
67 of these they were at school within a week of being certified as having
the disease. In some instances the children were at school whilst actually
suffering from diphtheria before the nature of their illness was recognised.
In 78 other cases, although the patients themselves were not school-going
children there were other children in the houses who were. In 28 instances
the histories showed that there had been cases of sore throat " amongst the
inmates of the houses in which the patients resided. In 30 instances there
was evidence pointing to infection from previous cases in the Borough. In
132 instances the houses were occupied by members of more than one family,
in 26 by single families, and in 26 instances the cases occurred in artizans'
dwellings of the block type. With regard to the sanitary condition of the
dwellings, in 108 this was satisfactory, in 36 fairly so, and in 40 it was unsatisfactory,
but these figures must not be taken as an indication that a satisfactory
sanitary condition is favourable to the occurrence of diphtheria in
houses. Similar proportions have been obtained in inspecting houses in
which no diphtheria cases were notified.
The cases certified as diphtheria in the Metropolis numbered 7,840, as
compared with 8,585 in 1907, 7,916 in 1906, and 6,482 in 1905, the attack-rates
being 1.6,, 1.8, 1.6, and 1.3 per 1,000 population respectively. The proportion
of attacks per thousand inhabitants in Shoreditch during the past four years
lias averaged about the same as that for London as a whole. The deaths in
London numbered 724, as compared with 781 in 1907, 691 in 1906, and 546
in 1905, the death-rates being 0.15, 0.16, 0.14, and 0.12 per 1,000 population
respectively.