66 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



farm is no longer allowed to enter the city. Thus 

 the young are in most cases guarded from this form 

 of tuberculous infection. Cases of severe whooping 

 cough and measles in infants are taken into Corpora- 

 tion Hospitals, whereby recovery is rendered more 

 rapid, and the spread of infection is checked. 



About 84 per cent, of the cases of scarlet fever 

 occurring are taken into Corporation Hospitals with 

 conspicuous advantage. Whereas fifty years ago 

 out of every 100,000 of our population 200, 300, 

 or even 370 deaths took place annually from scarla- 

 tina, the mortality now is only from 15 to 30 in the 

 100,000. 



Small-pox among vaccinated children does not 

 occur at all with us during the first two years of life, 

 but among the unvaccinated it causes a mortality of 

 57 per cent, of those attacked. This lamentable fact 

 is, of course, entirely due to unwise legislation. 

 While the disease is merely sporadic as at present, 

 segregation in hospital usually keeps down the num- 

 ber of cases, but if an epidemic should occur there 

 will, I fear, be a great massacre of the innocents, 

 as well as of older persons, for the number of the 

 unvaccinated is increasing yearly. 



The diphtheria mortality in infants, as well as 

 in adults, has been greatly reduced. 



One of the most serious causes of infant mortality 

 is the prevalence of epidemic or zymotic diarrhoea, 

 occurring in the autumn, especially in years of high 

 temperature and small rainfall. This ailment seems 

 to be due to errors in diet, especially the use of food 

 which is decomposing and becoming putrid. The 

 infective action of the common house-fly appears to 

 be in part the cause of this decomposition. Infants 

 fed from the breast suffer scarcely at all, those fed 

 otherwise show a mortality fifteen-fold as great. We 

 lose from 500 to 1,600 children per year from this 

 cause. 



