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hospitals, which was 21 in 1880, rose to 52 in 1887, and to 61
in 1888. And what is true in regard to Kensington is true also
in the main in regard to all of the other Metropolitan districts.
In 1878 the scarlet fever deaths in the hospitals were only 7 percent.
of the total mortality from the disease in London ; in 1888
they were 43"4 per cent.
STATISTICAL RETURNS.
The Asylums Board addressed a circular letter to the
Vestries and District Boards, in October, 1887, making application
for information to enable them to ascertain " the extent, as
compared with previous years, to which scarlet fever had been
prevalent during the year " in the several districts; their object
being to form " as correct an estimate as possible of the accommodation
to be provided in future " for cases of this disease. The
reason for inquiry was " the difficulty of obtaining reliable
information on the subject in the absence of any system of notification
of infectious disease "—a difficulty enhanced, perhaps,
by the fact, that although " the numbers of patients under
treatment in the hospitals" were, in October, " more than
double the numbers under treatment at any one time during the
past ten years," yet " the mortality . . . was below, rather
than above, the general average." It was reasonably assumed,
however, that as the deaths in the hospitals " form, year by
year, an increasing percentage of the total number of deaths,
. . . the numbers in the hospitals had also assumed a correspondingly
increased proportion of the total number of persons
attacked in the Metropolis."
At the request of your Vestry I drew up the desired information,
in the form of the subjoined Tables, which are selfexplanatory,
and to which I have now added the figures for the
year 1888:—