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128 persons in 1880; but even this large number was 14 below the
corrected average. Only 17 of the deaths occurred in the Brompton
sub-district. The quarterly numbers were 9, 10, 93, and 16,
respectively. One hundred and twenty four of the deaths were of
children under five years of age, including 97 under one year.
The fatality of infantile diarrhoea in summer, to whatever specific
cause due, is mainly a matter of temperature. In hot and dry summers
the disease is terribly fatal, whereas in cold and wet summers,
as in 1879, the mortality is small. Ninety-seven of the deaths
occurred in the 16 weeks between June '20th and October 9th,
viz., 10, 44, 30, and 13, in four several periods of four weeks each.
SMALL POX.
This disease, which had been absent from our midst in the latter
part of 1879, re-appeared at the beginning of 1880, just as it did
at the beginning of 1879. In my first report for 1880 (dated
Feb. 4th, page 3), I had to note the occurrence of seven cases, one
(fatal) in the north of the parish, and six in the south. Two of
these were of servant girls, a third case was imported from Paris,
two were children in attendance at St. Matthias' School, and the
last case was an adult brother of one of the children. Two of the
cases were treated at home, at Childs Place, and gave rise to a further
outbreak in that part of the parish. A few cases were imported, and
there were not wanting instances of that exposure of the sick,
voluntary or unintentional, to which in all probability the spread of
the disease is largely due in the locality of a hospital. The following
is one such case:—A servant, at Redcliffe Gardens, was taken
ill, August 27th, and being unable to do her work she was sent to
her friends at South Street, St. Mark's. She went to a general
hospital for advice on the 31st, and was directed to attend again on
September 2nd. On the 1st, however, feeling worse, she went in
a cab to the Parish Infirmary, and was found to be suffering from
small pox; she was sent at once to Fulham hospital in the ambulance.
The cab was not disinfected, having driven off before the
nature of the case was discovered. Two children were subsequently
admitted into the hospital from the house in South Street—a boy,
who was sent in the ambulance, and a girl who walked in. Among the