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1907]
116
SMALL POX.
It is very satisfactory to note that no case of Small pox was notified in
the borough during the year. This is the first time since 1898 that this has
occurred.
In the County of London only 8 cases were known, so that the metropolis
may congratulate itself on its freedom from this terrible scourge. In the
encircling boroughs, two cases were notified, one in St. Pancras, and one in
Shoreditch.
SCARLET FEVER.
There were 1,216 cases notified, as against an average of l,305 in the
preceding ten years, and they represented an attack rate of 3.50 per 1,000
of the population, as compared with a decennial rate of 3.26. In London the
rate was 545 per 1,000, and in the encircling boroughs 5.54 per 1,000.
In the first three quarters of the year the disease behaved much as usual
in Islington, running more or less on the lines of the averages of the corresponding
weeks during the preceding ten years. The weekly curves were, however,
somewhat more irregular, jumping about from such figures as 15 to 30, 16 to
25, 15 to 25, 10 to 18, 12 to 27, 14 to 30, and so on. As a rule, the maximum
number of cases is reached in the first week of the fourth quarter. This,
however, was not the case in the year under consideration, the maximum not
being attained until the last week of October., when 49 cases, or 4 more than
the average maximum of the preceding ten years, were notified. Afterwards
there was a very sharp decline in the number of the notifications, which
continued to the end of the year.
Hospital Isolation.—As many as 112, or 94.4 per cent of the cases
were removed to hospital. This percentage is without precedent, and speaks
largely as to the great use that is made of the Metropolitan Asylums Board's
hospitals in isolating this disease. (See also p. 150.)
Fatality.—Among 1,216 cases, 24 deaths, or 1.9 per cent., occurred,
which with the percentage obtained in 1898 is the lowest on record. In 1906
it was 2.7, in 1905 3.1, while in the 10 years 1891-1900 it was 3.3.