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77
MEDICAL OFFICER'S REPORT,
1888.
Annual Report on the Health of the Parish of St. Martin -in-the-FieIds,
for the Year 1888.
To the Vestry of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour of submitting to you my Nineteenth
Annual Report on the health and sanitary condition of the Parish.
In my Annual Report for the previous year, 1887, I mentioned
the outbreak of Scarlet Fever in the Metropolis, which epidemic
continued on for the first few months of the year 1888. In London
the number of deaths due to this disease in the year 1888, was
1209, a mortality less than in the previous year. In our own parish
every precaution was taken against the spread of the complaint, in
the way of isolation and disinfection, with the result that it was a
very rare event for a second case to occur in the same house.
Many cases of Scarlet Fever are concealed from the Sanitary
Authority, when, of course, the necessary safeguards are not so
well applied for the protection of the community. The Compulsory
Notification of Infectious Diseases would get over this difficulty.
Births.
In the year 1.888 the Births numbered 276, the lowest number of
the last ten years.