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14
of Fever is liable to be propagated by contagion. We may draw a fair
presumption of the spread of this disease from the history of Fever in the
St. Luke's Workhouse. During the year 1861, only 12 deaths from
Fever were recorded as occurring in this institution. But during 1862,
we find no less than 81 cases. A large proportion of these were cases of
Typhus imported from the Refuge for the Destitute. During the same
year, 1862, 21 cases of Fever died in Shoreditch Workhouse. In the
previous year, 1861, the number was 11. These figures, illustrated by
direct medical observation of individual cases,—without which control,
no vital statistics are to be trusted,—show that during the last year
Typhus fever has prevailed in Shoreditch as in other parts of the town,
although to a less extent. Deducting these cases, we should arrive at a
residuum of Typhoid cases not at all exceeding, perhaps even falling short
of, the mortality of former years, and offering no exception to the rule of
progressive improvement in salubrity which has been observed during the
administration of the Vestry appointed under the Metropolis Local
Management Act of 1855.
Next on the list of epidemics is Measles, which destroyed 199 children.
Scarlatina destroyed 162 children; and Diphtheria, 25.
Diarrhoea carried off 76 children and 14 persons of adult age. That
this disease is in a great majority of cases the immediate effect of the
entry of some poisonous matter generated by sewage fermentation or
some other product of defective sanitary conditions I have no doubt. It
is the summer-equivalent of the winter-pneumonia. Both diseases
own a similar origin, but the system reacts in a different manner against
the poison introduced. In the winter the lungs bear the brunt of the
disease, which may be explained in part by the fact, that in cold weather
children are cooped up in small close rooms, and exposed constantly to
the foul emanations accumulating therein. In the summer, cess-pool
and sewer fermentation is more active; whilst the bowels are more prone
to irritation from their compensatory relation to the skin, which is
subject to great alternations of action under the influence of heat. The
total number of deaths from Diarrhœa is very small. As Diarrhoea is an
important test of local sanitary conditions, I give the number of deaths
from this cause for each year since 1855. They stand as follows: 112,
107, 146, 143, 194, 76, 149, 90. The number of deaths will of course