28 T. P. ANDERSON STUART. 



fully capable of communicating the disease in a virulent form. 

 In the State of Michigan (population, 1890, a little over two 

 millions), on the other hand, and I take the figures from the 

 diagram exhibited by the State Board of Health at the Chicago 

 Fair, and a copy of which has just been sent to me, before isola- 

 tion and disinfection in diphtheria were enforced, the averages in 

 three hundred and seventeen outbreaks, were — 



13-57 cases with 2 67 deaths, 

 and after enforcement 2*04 cases with '48 deaths. 

 This represents a saving of 15,302 cases, and a saving of 2,722 

 lives, during the period 1886 - 90 in this one State. Think of 

 the wretchedness and misery of parents thus saved, for it is 

 children that have mainly thus been spared. 



Measles and Scarlet Fever. — With regard to these diseases, I 

 cannot do better than quote from the report of the Board of 

 Health on the recent very general outbreak, which has practi- 

 cally overrun the whole Colony : — " Thirteen deaths from measles 

 occurred among the three hundred and eleven cases admitted to 

 hospital, being equal to a death-rate of 4*18 per cent. ; the deaths 

 registered in the metropolitan district from the same disease, 

 excluding deaths occurring in hospital, were three hundred and 

 eighty-eight, and assuming that the rate of mortality of cases 

 treated in their homes was the same as that of the cases treated in 

 hospital, it is estimated that there must have been some nine to 

 ten thousand persons attacked with measles in the metropolitan 

 district during the epidemic in 1893. Most probably the numbers 

 were much larger, as only those cases which suffered from the 

 disease in a more or less severe form were removed to hospital, 

 and consequently it may be expected that the death-rate among 

 such cases was higher than among those who were treated at 

 their own homes. Seventeen deaths occurred among the two 

 hundred and seventeen cases of scarlet fever removed to hospital, 

 or at the rate of 7 '83 per cent, and an estimate formed on the 

 same basis as previously stated, shows that at least some two 



