View report page

In 196 of the cases the patients were children attending school, and in 149 of
these they were at school within a week of being certified as having the disease.
As noted in previous years, there were instances in which the children were at
school whilst suffering from diphtheria before the nature of their illness was
recognised. In 196 other cases, although the patients themselves were not schoolgoing
children, there were other children in the houses who were. In 34 instances
the histories showed that there had been cases of " sore throat " amongst the inmates
of the houses in which the patients resided. In 37 instances there was evidence
pointing to infection from previous cases in the Borough. In 315 instances the
houses were occupied by members of more than one family, in 74 by single families,
and in 32 instances the cases occurred in artisans' dwellings of the block type.
With regard to the sanitary condition of the dwellings, in 277 this was satisfactory,
in 58 fairly so, and in 86 it was unsatisfactory, but these figures must not be taken
as an indication that a satisfactory condition is favourable to the occurrence
of diphtheria in houses ; their significance has been referred to in previous reports.
It may be added that during the years 1902 to 1924 inclusive, as the result of
investigation into some 5,324 cases, 3,211 occurred in houses which were reported
satisfactory from a sanitary point of view—i.e., there were no serious sanitary defects
as regards drainage, light, ventilation, cleanliness and the surroundings generally,
whilst 2,113 were in houses more or less unsatisfactory. There seems to be nothing
therefore pointing to the incidence of diphtheria in the Borough being dependent
upon insanitary conditions of the houses invaded.
The cases certified as diphtheria in the Metropolis numbered 12,608, the attack
rate being 2.7 per 1,000. The deaths numbered 481 and the death-rate was 0.07
per 1,000 population, the case-mortality being 3.8 per cent.