View report page

74
scarlet fever deaths were fewer by 383, without, correction, and
with correction, by 1,053. It will be observed that in the first ten
years of the first period no deaths were recorded from diphtheria,
although the Table commences in 1859, the year in which diphtheria
was first classified and registered as a disease separate and distinct
from scarlet fever. 1 am unable to account for the omission, there
being no records extant, except upon the improbable assumption
that no deaths from diphtheria took place in Kensington in those
years. I have thought it fair, in any case, to bracket scarlet fever
and diphtheria in the two periods, respectively, for comparison ; and
thus, adding the deaths from diphtheria, 23 in the first period, and
218 in the second period, to the deaths from scarlet fever, we
have in the second period an absolute reduction of 193 in the
deaths from the two diseases, the reduction corrected for increase
of population being 878.
Comparing the mortality from the “seven principal diseases
of the zymotic class ” in the two periods, we arrive at a corrected
reduction in the number of deaths, in the second period, of no
fewer than 1,441. In other words, had the rate of mortality from
these diseases been the same in the second period (1871.82), as
in the first period (1859.70), there would have died in the second
period of twelve years 1,441 persons more than did die, or 120 per
annum. The zymotic death rate, I may add, which in 1859.70
was 8'6 per 1,000 persons living, fell to 2.8 per 1,000 in 1871.82;
the deaths from these diseases, moreover, which in 1859.70
formed 18 per cent, of total deaths, were only 15.4 per cent. in
1871.82.
Other causes, doubtless, besides notification, contributed to
bring about this satisfactory result, and we must not forget, as
regards enteric fever, that this disease, under improved sanitary
arrangements, has “ continuously and notably declined in England
during recent years.” Chief among these causes, and one, in my
judgment, even superior in efficacy to notification, is the provision
of hospital accommodation by the Asylums Board, under the
powers of the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867. So highly,
indeed, do I value this provision, that, were I offered a choice