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reason is not far to seek. People did not use the hospitals nine
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 1880 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 in 1880 was 32, had risen in 1887 to
68; it further rose in 1888 to 73, but fell in 1889 to 66. The
percentage of deaths in hospitals, which was 21 in 1880, rose
to 52 in 1887, and to 71 in 1888, but it fell in 1889 to 66.
And, what is true in regard to Kensington is true also in the
main in regard to all the other Metropolitan districts. In 1878
the scarlet fever deaths in the hospitals were only 7 per cent,
of the total mortality from the disease in London ; in 1889 they
were 48'9 per cent., or practically one-half of the whole.
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.
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
years 1888 and 1889.