View report page

23
always be prevented; but the occurrence of bronchitis or pneumonia,
for instance, is often owing to want of care in the management
of the sufferers. The little ones are not, perhaps cannot be,
confined to the house, even in winter: they catch cold; the
"cold" and the "cough" are not differentiated; medical treatment
is not sought until the child is obviously very ill, and, when
it is obtained, the patient is but too frequently beyond the reach
of help.
Scarlet Fever, which was the cause of 18 deaths in 1884,
proved fatal in only 7 cases in 1885—five of them in the Town subdistrict—the
corrected decennial average being 60. I had not to
record any death from this cause in eight of my 13 four-weekly
reports, and in five consecutive months, February to June, there
was not a death. The disease was not epidemic in London, and
the deaths were 1,752 fewer than the decennial average corrected
for increase of population. Of local deaths, 2 took place in
hospitals, to which 42 out of 110 recorded cases were removed for
treatment. Of the 110 cases 38 only belonged to North Kensington,
i.e., the part of the parish north of the Uxbridge Road,
and 72 to South Kensington, i.e., the remainder of the parish south
of the Uxbridge Road. The recorded cases in 1882, 1883, and
1884, were 319, 231, and 202. In 1884 the cases in North and
South Kensington respectively were 75 and 127, so that for two
years the disease has been most prevalent in the southern half of the
parish. In several instances, as usual, the occurrence of the disease
was concealed until recovery had taken place, and the cases were
then reported with the object of obtaining gratuitous disinfection.
In other cases when the existence of the disease became known
at an early period, we were unable to induce parents to allow their
children to be removed to hospital. A certain number of home
patients were, to all appearance, properly isolated, and the removal
of them to hospital was deemed unnecessary; but proofs were not
wanting that, even when the sufferers had what might be fairly
described as "proper lodging or accommodation," due care could
not have been taken to prevent the spread of the disease, unless
it be the fact that no amount of care suffices to prevent it from