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sub-district; 61 were registered in twelve weeks ended September
12th. As usual, the deaths were chiefly of young children, viz.,
82 under five years of age,. including 69 under one year. The
decrease of mortality from diarrhœal diseases in the metropolis
generally, after correction for growth of population, represented
a saving of 702 lives.
CHOLERA CONFERENCE.
The subject of Asiatic cholera again in 1885 exercised
the minds of all engaged in sanitary administration, owing to an
outbreak in Europe which, beginning at the end of May in Spain,
where it committed great havoc, extended to some portions of
southern France, Italy, &c. The existence of commercial relations
between Spain and this country, the Welsh ports especially,
naturally drew attention to the probability of the disease reaching
our coasts. In view of this probability, and at the instance
of the then President of the Local Government Board, a
Conference was held, in the month of July, by the Medical Officer
to the Board and the Metropolitan Medical Officers of Health, as
to the state of preparedness of London. A similar Conference
was held in July, 1883, cholera then prevailing in Egypt, the
main conclusion arrived at being that "to safeguard the Metropolis
increased attention should be devoted by sanitary authorities
and their officers to ordinary means for improving the sanitary
condition of the several districts." It was also agreed to call the
attention of the Local Government Board "to the necessity of
careful supervision of the sources of water supply in the rivers,
and of the storage reservoirs, &c., on the ground that if cholera
should be imported into the Metropolis it might be spread, as on
former occasions, through the agency of the water companies."
At the Conference in 1885, as in 1883 likewise, it fell to my lot,
as President of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, to
preside, and I took occasion to recall the steps which had been
taken, in the way of preparation, since the summer of 1884, when,
on the appearance of cholera in France, measures of defence were
concerted at a meeting between the Medical Officers of Health