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40
DIPHTHERIA.
Diphtheria, which was the registered cause of 30 deaths
in 1886, was fatal to 40 persons, 20 males and 20 females, in
1887, 33 in the Town sub-district and 7 in Brompton, the
corrected decennial average number being 22. Twenty of the
deaths occurred among children between 1 and 5 years, three
under 1 year, eleven between 5 and 12 years, and six at ages
above 16 years. Nine of the deaths took place in public
institutions. The deaths in London in 1886 from diphtheria
(846) were 87 below the corrected average. Last year the
deaths, 961, were 180 in excess of the average. The RegistrarGeneral
states that the registered mortality from diphtheria has
been considerably higher in each of the last six years, 1882-87,
than in any previous years since 1864, while during the six
years themselves the rate has remained almost constant. In
Kensington the mortality from diphtheria has been increasing
for some years, and in 1887 the deaths (40) were more
numerous than in any year in the preceding decennium (vide
Table V., Appendix). I cannot account for this increase, which
to some extent may possibly be apparent rather than real, and
due to greater accuracy in diagnosis. This explanation seems
the more probable, as the disease has not hitherto exhibited any
tendency to spread or become epidemic. It is probable that
some of the cases registered as diphtheria were really cases of
croup, or even of scarlatina anginosa. Sometimes, on the other
hand, the specific character of an apparently simple throat
affection does not become apparent until paralysis supervenes
—this being one of the more serious sequelae of diphtheria.
There was a localised outbreak in Stratford Road and Radley
Mews, at the beginning of the year—in five families, in as many
houses; the cases being nine and the deaths five. To one of the
houses the disease appeared to have been imported by a ser vant
from a distant parish, and in another house, where three cases
occurred, the disease was probably due to defective sanitary
conditions.