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number under treatment. The epidemic may, therefore,
be said to have commenced in the beginning of
July, 1887, to have attained its full development in
November of that year, and gradually to have declined
from January to June of this year.
Much misapprehension existed as to the character
of the epidemic. Whilst the returns published daily
of the number of cases admitted for treatment into the
hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board countenanced
the idea that an epidemic much severer than
previous ones existed in the Metropolis, the weekly
death returns of the Registrar-General gave no indication
of there being any epidemic at all.
This apparent discrepancy was owing to two
causes.
In the first place the disease was of a very mild
type, so that whilst attacking many it killed but few,
and thus did not appreciably affect the Scarlatinal
death rate. This was 0.34 per 1,000 living in 1887,
as compared with 0.17 per 1,000 living in 1886, and
0.18 per 1,000 living in 1885, and 0.47 per 1,000
living in the preceding decennial period.
Thus, although the mortality from scarlet fever
was higher in 1887 than in the two preceding years,
it was 28 per cent. below the decennial average.
In the second place the magnitude of the number
applying for treatment in the hospitals of the Asylums