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ERYSIPELAS.
The number of cases of erysipelas notified during the year
was 167, of which 64 were males and 103 females. This gives
a case rate of 0.64 per 1,000 living. The corresponding
numbers of cases for the years 1934, 1935, and 1936, were 174, 126,
and 145 respectively. The number of deaths was 5, which gives
a death rate of 0.02 per 1,000 of the population. The number of
patients removed to hospital was 69, so that the removal rate was
41.32 per cent.
Age and seasonal incidence. Table I. shows that the cases
occurred fairly regularly throughout the year. The highest incidence
was in the fourth quarter. From Table II. it will be seen
that the largest proportion—77.7 per cent.—of the patients were
over the age of 45 years. From the figures for the year 1937 it
is evident that the disease was especially fatal under 1 year
of age, and in the decade 55 to 65 years. The incidence was
highest in the New Town ward (1.04 per 1,000 living), and the
wards with the next highest incidence were Beckton Road (0.92),
Hudsons (0.88), Tidal Basin (0.78), and Custom House (0.72).
The lowest incidence (0.36) occurred in the West Ham Ward.
The statistics of erysipelas since 1891 are given in Table
XII. The case rate has shown a slight reduction from a maximum
of 0.94 in the period 1911-1915 to 0.60 in the period 1931-1935.
The rates are about 50 per cent. higher than the corresponding
case rates for England and Wales. The death rates on the other
hand have shown a marked decline from a rate of 0.08 forty years
ago to a rate of 0.02 in the last quinquennial period. The decline
is more obvious in the local than in the national rates.
These data for erysipelas are particularly interesting if they
are viewed together with the data for scarlet fever. In both diseases
a relatively enormous decline in the death rate has been effected
in the space of forty or fifty years, but in the same period there has
been only a slight reduction in the attack rate. In both diseases
the decline in the mortality is due largely to a reduction of the
fatality in individual cases. The fatality of scarlet fever declined
to about one-fifth of what it was in the period 1901-1905, and the
fatality of erysipelas declined to about a third of what it was at
that period. In both diseases these features were associated with
an increasing removal rate—though in the cases of erysipelas this
increase was intermittent.
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