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22
deaths were registered in 12 weeks—April 26th to July 18th
inclusive—and all but 8 of the deaths occurred in the Town subdistrict.
The epidemic was not unexpected, for in my last
annual report I stated that "in the natural course of events," we
might "reasonably expect an enhanced mortality from measles in
the course of the present year, or in 1886." In the majority of
the fatal cases, some intercurrent disease, of the respiratory
organs usually, complicating the original malady, was the immediate
cause of death. Comparatively little care is taken by
parents among the poorer classes to prevent spread of measles.
Not regarding it as a serious disease, and considering it inevitable
as teething, they naturally enough hold it to be less trouble in the
long run if all their children have the complaint at one time. It
must be allowed, however, that it is difficult to prevent measles
from spreading, the disease being highly infectious from an early
stage, if not from the commencement of the attack. The circumstances,
moreover, in which the poor live in London—two or
more families generally occupying one house and using a common
staircase—almost preclude the possibility of isolation. But
more care might be taken to protect the sufferers against
secondary affections, which, as already stated, are, as a rule, the
immediate causes of death.
Whooping Cough, the cause of 81 deaths in 1884, proved
fatal in 1885 to 98 children, all but three under five years of age,
and all but 12 in the Town sub-district, the corrected decennial
average being 105. Reference was made above to the indifference
of parents in regard to the spread of measles in their families.
The observation is perhaps even more generally applicable in
regard to whooping cough, the danger of this always distressing
malady being unappreciated by the poor, who, in the engrossing
battle of life pay scant attention to an ailment which they deem
at once inevitable and seldom dangerous. Often enough, when the
disease ends fatally, the event comes as a surprise, due, as it
commonly is, to some secondary disease, e.g., of the respiratory
organs, or of the nervous system; for few deaths are registered
from whooping cough alone. These secondary diseases cannot