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9
Dr. Whitmore, estimates the fatal cases much higher.
According to my estimate of persons attacked, there
would have been one thousand seven hundred and
fifty cases of Scarlatina during eighteen months in
this Parish, and I have no reason to believe this to
be an exaggeration. The largest number of fatal
cases are at the ages of above one year and under
five years.
According to the class of families where this
disease has appeared, it seems to have had no special
relation, to the conditions of destitution and poverty ;
the rich, the middle class, and poor have suffered alike.
Sanitary defects in house construction and ventilation,
smells and malaria from drains, do not appear to have
had any perceptible influence upon the course of this
malady.
Houses were again and again inspected without
either discovering any sanitary defects at all, or such
as were common to all or any other dwelling in the
same street. One thing only was notably certain, its
contagious and spreading character; the disease had
either extended itself from one to others in the same
house, or was imported into the house from a school,
or a house where other cases existed. There was
seldom any difficulty in thus tracing the origin of the
disease. On the very border of this Parish, but in
two adjoining parishes, two instances occurred showing
the sad havoc of this disease in large families. In
one family five deaths occurred in succession ; in
another four ; all were in children supposed to be
previously strong and healthy.