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14
ventilated and over-crowded rooms, there they more
readily succumb to a disease like measles.
Although the mortality from diarrhoea, in 1859,
did not rise so high as in 1857, it nevertheless
exceeded the average of the last four years. The
death was almost entirely confined to the summer
and autumn months, and in only 3 cases occurred
in persons above 5 years of age ; and of the remaining
17, 12 were infants under one year old. That
this fatal result has been produced, in the majority
of cases, by improper feeding, I have no doubt;
and I believe, from inquiries made into the history
of several cases at the time, that one of the most
common errors in diet is the feeding children with
cows' milk that has been kept till it has begun to
change. In the hot summer season, milk rapidly
becomes acescent, and, when administered in this
state, it brings on diarrhoea. The tendency to
diarrhoea is also increased in the summer season of
the year by the drinking of unfiltered and surfacewell
water, which, after standing a little time, becomes
putrescent, and is capable of producing the
same state of change in food with which it is mixed*.
Scarlet fever has also presented an excess, in 1859,
over preceding years. This disease is usually more
fatal than measles, and carries off a large number
*As confirming the above, I may refer to a statement, made by Dr.
Dauglish, the patentee of the process for making aerated bread, at a recent
meeting of the Society of Arts, that the flour in this process underwent an
injurious fermentation, from having been made with unfiltered water supply
of the district in which the bakery is situated; and that on subsequently
using boiled water, the fermentation was prevented.