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exposed to infection, and the disinfection of the premises,
and any further action which the circumstances will admit
of for the purposes of checking the extension of the
disease.
In St. Giles District there has only been one death (in
1887) since 1885 from small-pox. In March, 1891, a notification
was received that a male adult, lodging in a good house
in the District, was suffering from it. On receipt of the information
the patient was promptly removed to the Asylums
Board's hospital, and the usual precautions relative to disinfection
and re-vaccination were taken, with the result that
no further case was reported.
From enquiries, I found that this young man had evidently
contracted the disease from some one in another part
of the Metropolis, but from whom I was unable to trace.
Scarlet Fever (decennial average 10.9).—In 1891 this
disease caused 589 deaths in the metropolis, and 4,845 in
the whole of England and Wales.
In this District 103 cases were notified, all of which recovered;
of these 56 were removed to hospitals. During
the year the total number of scarlet fever patients admitted
to the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board
amounted to 5,262, of whom 357 died, a mortality of only
6.11 per cent., a death-rate lower than that of any previous
year since the opening of the Board's hospitals in 1870.
Dr. Caiger, the Medical Superintendent of the Southwestern
Fever Hospital, in an analysis of over 1,000 cases
admitted, states " that the period and extent of desquamation
(peeling) varied in different cases within wide limits. In
some instances„ namely, in adults and very young children,
it was completed in less than six weeks; in others it was
prolonged to 12 or even 16 weeks.