View report page

21
and devoted to the treatment of fever. A question even arose
whether it might not be necessary to open Fulham Hospital, which
at the time contained few small-pox cases, for the reception of
fever patients ? but the necessity did not arise. The outbreak soon
abated in Kensington, for in the following month there was not
one death from enteric fever, and only two cases were recorded;
but the disease continued to be unusually prevalent in the
Metropolis for a further length of time. Some of the cases that
came under notice were fairly referable to drainage defects admitting
sewer gas into houses, but this observation applies less to the
period when the disease was most prevalent, than to other times
when single fatal cases were occurring.
A question has been raised whether enteric fever is infectious?
That it is so, I myself entertain no doubt. Still, when cases
occur locally in large numbers, the outbreak is usually caused by
drinking water, alone or in milk, or breathing air, contaminated
with the specific poison. A pure water supply and good domestic
sanitary arrangements are essential for the extirpation of the malady.
For the former we must look to an enlightened legislature, for the
latter to rigorous application of the legal powers conferred on
nuisance authorities.
Simple Continued Fever.—The deaths from simple continued
Fever were five, viz., 4 in the Town sub-district, and 1 in
Brompton.
Diarrhœa.—The deaths from diarrhoea, 101 in number) fell
below the corrected average by 36; 90 of them took place in the
Town sub-district, and 11 in Brompton. Eighty-two of the deaths
were registered in 16 weeks, June 19 to October 8, and 65 of this
number in the first half of the period. As usual the great bulk
of the deaths were of young children—91 under five years of age,
and 75 under one year. Diarrhoea, however, was neither so prevalent
nor so fatal as in some previous years—there were 181 deaths
in 1878—the explanation being that the summer temperature was
low and the rainfall abundant. The deaths from diarrhoea in the
Metropolis also were below the average, for although "there was a
sharp epidemic in the hot weeks of July," as the Registrarc
c