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279
The foregoing constitute the Principal Zymotic
Diseases, and it is customary to state the "Zymotic
Death-rate" due to them. The value of such a rate,
except as a most crude and popular measure of the
sanitary condition of the district, is a matter for much
doubt. The death-rate caused by these diseases last
year amounted to 1.57 in the Parish as a whole, compared
with corresponding rates of 2.58, 1.93, and 2.47
in 1896, 1897, and 1898, and a mean of 2.09 for the
decennium 1889-98. In North Paddington the
zymotic rate was 2.00, and the decennial mean rate
2.48, and in South Paddington the corresponding
rates were 0.32, and 1.07 respectively.
The diseases included in the group fall naturally
into two classes, viz.:—those which are included in
the schedule for notification and those not so included.
The former (including smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria
and "fever,") may for convenience of reference
be styled "controlled," the latter (including measles,
whooping cough, and diarrhœa) as "uncontrolled,'
diseases. In the former case, notification, enforced
isolation, disinfection, etc., are employed to limit the
spread of infection, in the latter, little is done outside
the region of general sanitation.* The death rate from
the "controlled" group was 0.34 last year, compared
* With regard to measles, the efforts at control made locally, are too incomplete
to have exercised much influence at the present time. There is little
doubt that some benefit has accrued, but not equal to that elfiected in the
first group,