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Brompton. The disease was fatal above the average in the
Metropolis generally; but in Kensington the deaths were 7
below the corrected decennial average. I had occasion in my
fifth monthly report (May 25, page 41), to refer to the excessive
prevalence of the disease in the vicinity of James Street and
other contiguous streets, at the rear of Kensington Square. In
some 88 houses, specially visited in May, there had been 60
cases, resulting in 8 deaths, 6 of which occurred in James Street,
three of them in one house. No fewer than 113 cases of measles
were under treatment by Dr. Clippingdale, in the Kensington
Dispensary District, between March 7th and May 21st, of which 9
proved fatal chiefly as the result of intercurrent diseases, e.g. pneumonia,
bronchitis, &c., complicating the original malady. Little care,
it must be said, is taken by the poor to prevent the spread of measles;
they consider it just as inevitable as teething that their children
should have measles, and that there is less trouble in the end
if all the children have it at one time. It must be admitted,
however, that there is great difficulty in preventing the disease
from spreading, for not only is it highly infectious but it is
infectious probably from the very beginning of the illness. The
circumstances, moreover, in which the poor live in London, several
families in a house with a common staircase, may be said almost
to preclude the possibility of isolation. More care, however, might
be taken to protect the sufferers against the complicating affections
which as a rule are the immediate causes of death in fatal cases.
Excepting in the Dispensary district above alluded to, we had no
evidence of the concentration of disease in any particular
locality, and as respects that district we may reasonably attribute
the cessation of the outbreak to the fact that most if not all susceptible
children had been attacked: the fire went out for
want of fuel.
Whooping Cough.—The deaths from whooping cough were 85
—78 in the Town sub-district and 7 in Brompton (14 fewer
than the corrected decennial average), and all save two under
five years of age. Twenty-three of the deaths were registered
in the first eight weeks of the year, following upon 12
deaths registered in the last four weeks of 1880. Excepting
in the four weeks ending June 18, when 6 deaths were registered