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9
grappled with their difficult task. The total cases dealt with by
them numbered 5932, against 1661 during the preceding year. Our
removals were for this year 118, as contrasted with 50 for the year
1886. Upon the subject of Scarlet Fever, on October 27th, the
Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums' Board requested to be
furnished with certain information regarding the outbreak in our
District, to which I replied, "The chief difficulty at the outset of
the investigation is the present impossibility of knowing all the
cases which occur within the District, and of course, without this
important factor, the exact value of a knowledge of the number of
cases which have been removed to hospitals is lessened.
That many cases of Scarlet Fever remain concealed from
Sanitary Authorities, either through ignorance or design, I am
aware, having frequently met with cases of Scarlatinal Sequelae,
which only by accident have been brought to notice. Hence the
vast importance of obtaining, by Act of Parliament, compulsory
notification of all infectious diseases. The statistics at my
disposal show that during the year 1884 we were apprised of 119
cases of Scarlet Fever, which occurred throughout the Whitechapel
District, of which number 66.3 per cent. were removed to hospitals.
In 1885, 62.5 per cent. of 40 cases were removed; and in 1886 we
knew of 79 cases, of which 63.2 per cent. were removed. Up to
the end of the 42nd week of the current year we were aware of
115 cases, of which 82.6 per cent. were taken charge of by the
Metropolitan Asylums' Board.
Although these particulars can afford no clue to the total
number of cases which have occurred in the District, it is plain
that those cases known to us this year are greatly in excess of
those with which we dealt in former years. It is also patent that
the increasing popularity of the Asylums' Board Hospitals have
induced many more persons to seek treatment in them than was
formerly the case.
I further notice that our deaths from Scarlet Fever have
generally been uniform in numbers during the past few years, and
that the deaths in hospitals, which in 1885 equalled 25.0 per cent.
of the total deaths from that disease, in 1886 equalled 54.5 per
cent., or nearly double. Up to the end of the 42nd week of this
year 38.8 per cent. of our total District deaths from Scarlet Fever
were registered in hospitals.