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year, on the part of parents to avail themselves of the advantages
afforded by the Hospitals of the Asylums Board, for treatment,
and for isolation when this is necessary for preventing the
spread of the disease. Evidence of this fact may be seen in
the Table at page 25.
The deaths in London from this cause were 1,209, the
corrected decennial average being 1,960. The type of the
disease was mild, the case-mortality in the Hospitals being
low. In Kensington the mortality in respect of known cases
was 10-3 per cent., a rate in excess of the true proportion, as
many cases, doubtless, occurred of which we had no information.
Still, we have reason to believe that the occurrence of the disease
is much more generally reported now than in byegone years.
Thus if we compare the figures in the Table for the year 1887
with those for tbe year 1880, we note that the number of cases
recorded was the same in both years, but that the case-mortality
in 1880 (22'5 per cent.) was more than double that in 1887 ;
the only conclusion at which we can arrive therefore is that in
1880 the concealed cases must have been considerably more
numerous than in 1887. It may be added that the deaths in
London in 1880 were more than twice as numerous as in 1887;
and yet we had then no such alarm as in the latter year. The
reason is not far to seek, Peojjle did not use the hospitals eight
years ago as they do now. The bulk of the sick were kept at
home. Most of the deaths occurred in private houses, and so
there was no particular strain on the hospitals to awaken public
attention to the epidemic. Our local experience may be cited
by way of illustration of this statement. In 1887 the hometreated
cases were 316 out of 466 cases recorded, only 150 cases
having gone to hospitals ; whereas in 1887 the home-treated
cases were only 149, the cases removed to hospital being 316
an exact reversal of the figures of 1880. The percentage of
removals, moreover, which iu 1880 was 32, had risen in 1887 to
68 ; it further rose in 1888 to 73. The percentage of deaths in