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37
the Fever Hospitals of the Managers, there should be express
legislation for the purpose, and the Board stated that the question
whether legislation on the subject should be proposed would receive
their consideration. That such consideration should result in
legislation for the purpose is much to be desired, it being often
difficult to obtain admittance at General Hospitals for patients
suffering from diphtheria, however necessary removal may be for
the sake of the patients and of other inmates of the same room
or house.
Whooping Cough, the cause of 98 deaths in 1885, proved
fatal in 1886 to 82 children, all under five years of age, and
35 under one year:—58 in the Town sub-district, and 24 in
Brompton; the corrected decennial average being 103. Sixty-one
of the deaths were registered during the first 20 weeks of the
year, the remaining 21 deaths being spread over 32 weeks.
Reference has already been made 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—of the respiratory organs, or of the
nervous system—for few deaths are registered from whooping
cough alone. These secondary diseases cannot 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.
As in the case of measles, the London mortality from
whooping-cough was somewhat below the average of the previous
decennium, but the fall was not much more than could be