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51
a day or two with the fever upon them. (See Table III).
A note to the memorandum, which has been above
quoted, runs as follows: "The hop-pickers, who in Sep"tember
tramp off into Kent from the poorer districts of
"London are, on their return, peculiarly the subjects of
"epidemic disease; and this year the experience of the
"London Fever Hospital has shewn that they have been
"largely attacked by relapsing fever." A Report on
Relapsing Fever in St. Giles's District, by Dr. Ross, points
also very strongly to the same fact. There can be little
doubt that the position of Camberwell in relation to the
hop-growing county, and the popularity of its Workhouse
due to the liberality with which it is conducted, are the
essential cause of the strange prevalence of fever within
the walls of the Workhouse, or rather of the strange fact
that a healthy Workhouse, lying within a healthy district,
should be the centre whence so large a number of fever
cases have been removed to the Fever Hospital.
In addition to the facts already quoted from the mortuary
tables, it may be mentioned:—that during the year, 18
women died in their confinements, and 14 persons of
erysipelas or allied disease; that one death was ascribed to
hydrophobia, a disease which it will be recollected caused
several deaths last Autumn in the South of London ; that
2 deaths were ascribed to tetanus, 3 to delirium-tremens,
and 13 to inherited syphilis; that the mortality among
young children was very high, 630 infants having perished
in the past year, 427 between one and five, and 123
between five and ten; so that 1,180 deaths (as nearly as
possible half the total mortality) occurred in the first 10