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10
The malignant nature of the disease induced the public generally
willingly to adopt those measures of precaution which were placed
within their reach.
I have already stated, that during the year 1863 the deaths from
Fever registered in London amounted to 7,967. Of these 5,075
were due to Scarlet Fever, and 2,892 to Typhus. To these fatal
results the Saint Saviour's District contributed a little short of its
numerical proportion. There is no existing record of so large a
mortality from this cause. In the year 1889 there were 2,500 deaths
from Scarlet Fever; and it has been remarked, with reference to that
period, that "it is probable, no epidemic of similar length and
intensity ever before visited this Country.'' Last year, however,
twice that number died from the same cause.
The Typhus Fever of the past year was of a peculiarly malignant
character. It almost uniformly happened that wherever it made
its appearance, every member of the household was smitten down.
In one house alone in this District, it raged for a period of three
months, 23 persons—the entire number of the occupants of the
house falling prostrate one after the other. Its exhausting and
debilitating power spared neither the feeble nor the robust, the
young nor the old. Indeed it appears to have been most fatal to
those apparently most able to resist its power. More than one
instance occurred in your District, in which the head of the family,
after having seen wife and children prostrated by this poison and
recovering from its effects, at last received it himself, and sunk
beneath its fatal power. There can be no doubt, however, that those
persons who had been previously addicted to habits of intemperance
proved the most difficult to cure. To such, a moderate amount of
stimulant in the form of wine was almost useless as a remedial
agent; while frequently in the case of children who had been unaccustomed
to alcoholic drink, the beneficial effect of these remedies
was almost instantaneous.
You will observe from the Table of Sanitary Works, that your
Inspector of Nuisances has displayed considerable activity during the
past year. The Guardians of the Union and their Officers were, I
believe, desirous of secluding cases of Fever whenever it was practicable,
and liberally to relieve where it was not so. To these measures
it is not unreasonable to attribute the low mortality of this District,
as compared with those in the immediate neighbourhood, where some
at least of these methods of alleviation were not adopted.
Had it been possible to anticipate the epidemics of the past year,
we should doubtless have predicated an aggregate increase of mortality.
But happily the same benificent law of compensation,
which so generally pervades human affairs, appears also to regulate
health and disease, life and death. As the fatal effects of one form
of disease increase it frequently happens that those of another kind
diminish.
Saint Saviour may now fairly be regarded as a healthy District.