View report page

34
DIPHTHERIA.
In 1888, and still more in 1889, diphtheria was epidemic
in Kensington, especially in the northern parts of the Parish :
the deaths, 89 and 111 in the two years respectively, were 65
and 79 above the corrected decennial average. In 1890 the
deaths were only 35, or 6 below the corrected average. Last
year the deaths further fell to 28, and were 12 below the
corrected average: twenty-four of the deaths belong to the
Town sub-district, and four to Brompton. The deaths in the
Brompton sub-district in the three previous years had been
2, 5, and 6 respectively. Thirteen of the deaths took place
at home and 15 in hospitals—most of them in the Western
Fever Hospital. The ages at death were: under five years,
18 (two in the first year of life), between five and fifteen 8;
and 1 each between 15 and 25, and 45 and 55. The cases
recorded as diphtheria were 182, viz., 114 north, and 68 south
of Uxbridge Road. Sixty of them were removed to hospital,
where, as stated, 15 died, giving a case-mortality of 25 per
cent, (the same as in 1890) against 10.6 in the 122 hometreated
cases—the hospital cases being, as a rule, severe,
while many of those kept at home were very mild in
character. The sufferers comprised 68 males and 114 females;
44 of them were under five years of age, 57 between five and
twelve years (the usual public elementary school age), 30
between twelve and twenty-one, and 51 upwards of twenty-one.
Sixty of the children had been in attendance at schools, 43 in
North Kensington, and 17 in South Kensington.
The case-mortality of diphtheria, 61.8 per cent. in 1888
and 45.3 per cent. in 1889, fell, in 1.890 (notification being in
practice), to 16.8 per cent., and in 1891 to 15.4 per cent.— a
reduction too great to be accounted for on the assumption of
diminished malignancy in the type of the disease, and more
probably due to the inclusion among the home-treated cases
notified, of a considerable number of cases of non-specific