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30
CAUSES OF DEATH.
Class I.—Zymotic Diseases.
Of the 855 deaths reported, 146 were due to the principal zymotic diseases. The
special zymotic rate per 1000 was, therefore, 3.36. This is 0.12 less than that of all
London for the same time. Measles caused 53 deaths, its rate being 1.3 per 1000; the
London rate was 0.66. This is partly due to the ignorance of parents in humble life
as to the risks their children run from exposure to cold after the "measles eruption"
has faded, and partly due, no doubt, to the fact that congregating together in the
streets and board schools as our working class children do, they cannot expect to
escape the risks of contagion to which children in better circumstances are not exposed.
The deaths from diarrhoea and “cholera,” 26 in all, were below the average. The
whooping cough death rate was the lowest I have yet had to record; 9 deaths gave us
only a rate of 0.22 per 1000. Diphtheria caused 6 deaths; its rate was 0.14 per 1000.
The deaths from scarlet fever, 20 in number, showed a rate of 0.48 per thousand;
thit is below the decennial average, as indeed, with the exception of small pox, all our
zymotic rates are. Nine cases were removed to hospital.
The name small pox opens up a theme which has placed me in unavoidable
opposition to many previous friends and well wishers, and subjected me to considerable
obliquy at their hands. I refer to the necessary steps for suppressing this dire
malady, which, in my public position I was compelled to initiate and carry out, with
your sanction, to the best of my power. Although in all cases coming to our knowledge,
with one much to be regretted exception, immediate isolation or removal to Hospital,
with vaccination or re-vaccination as necessary, and thorough disinfection of premises
and their contents, was promptly effected by your Officers.
I have to report that 20 deaths from small pox, mostly unvaccinated, occurred in the
parish, and that no less than 202 persons with it were sent by us to Hospital. Of course
numerous cases of small pox were unknown to me, being carefully concealed from the
Sanitory Authority whenever possible. But the fact remains that, although small pox
can be and is almost entirely in the country stamped out, in London this seems quite
impracticable.
As I have just had the honour of stating to the Royal Commissioners re Infections
Hospitals, I have tride to ascertain why so many cases of small pox should occur
in London, whereas in large cities, which present a very striking resemblance to
London, except actual latitude and longitude, there are hardly any from week to week,
and I can only account for it in this way : first, that in the first place re-vaccination is
far less effectually carried out in London than in the provinces, since the lower classes
in London are dreadfully prejudiced against vaccination, and until recently there has
been no means of meeting to their satisfaction their stock argument, which is, that they