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be available. A very promising method is being tested in
Glasgow.
The scheme by which we are informed of children attending
London Elementary Schools who are suffering from Measles, is a
useful contribution to our Public Health measures for dealing with
communicable disease. Under the scheme a considerable number,
and generally as many as can be dealt with, of notices of children
reach us quite promptly.
DIPHTHERIA.
The deaths from this disease during 1921-25 exceeded the mean
of all the years since 1901, and were slightly more numerous than
those registered in 1901-5. In 1901-5 408 cases were notified and
the case mortality rate was 10 per cent., whereas in 1921-25 493
cases were notified and the case mortality rate was about 9 per cent.
I regard these facts as reproachful; for during the past 20 years
some very real advances have been made in medical knowledge
upon how to prevent secondary infection from occurring in the
homes of primary sufferers and of how to reduce, in great measure,
the risk of death among those attacked. Were these two measures
applied early whenever the disease makes its appearance, thousands
of children could be protected from infection and many others saved
from death yearly in Great Britain ; but both forms of protection
involve the use of a vaccine, and there is still much prejudice among
the masses against inoculations. The anti-toxine which reduces
the virulence of the attack is very generally employed, and with
strikingly good results; but the toxine-anti-toxine mixture which
protects against infection is seldom administered to those at
risk who can be proved by tests to be susceptible to the
infection.
SCARLET FEVER.
The mean death-rate from this disease during 1921-25 was
50 per cent. below that for any five-yearly period since the Borough
was constituted. The present-day mildness of the disease is
impressed by the fact that in 1921—a record year of prevalence—
453 cases were notified but not a single death from this disease took