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was so much in excess of any other building belonging to
the Trust, for it is stated in their annual report for 1883
that the death-rate for the whole of their buildings was but
18.6 per 1,000.
But as the birth-rate in the Great Wild Street was very
high, and 4-6 per 1,000 in excess of the whole of the
Peabody Fund Buildings, it must to a certain extent be
set-off against the heavy death-rate.
The Outbreak of Scarlet Fever in St. Giles District
in 1882 *
The outbreak was not confined to this District, but
affected part of St. Pancras, whereupon that Vestry
reported the matter to the Local Government Board, and
requested one of its Medical Inspectors to institute inquiries
respecting it.
The report of the Inspector, Mr. W. H. Power, has been
published in the 12th Annual Report of the Local Government
Board, which contains a remarkable and somewhat
alarming hypothesis. The outbreak in question was supposed
to be connected with milk obtained from a farm in
Surrey: but no scarlet fever, nor any illness resembling it,
had occurred at this farm, yet there was evidence that the
milk was contaminated with the contagion of scarlet fever
before it reached Charing Cross Railway Station, whither
it was consigned by the farmer to the particular milkseller's
place of business in this District. Mr. Power was thus led
to start the theory that the milk was infected by the cow
itself, and, as a corollary of this, that a cow may be able
to transmit the poison of scarlet fever without herself
* Vide account of the same in my Annual Report to the Boaril for the
year 1881, page 64,