ON THE CARBONIC ACID, ORGANIC MATTER, ETC., IN AIR. 
107 
The very high death-rates for measles and hooping-cough in one- and two-roomed 
houses is due, not, to any considerable extent, to the increased frequency of these 
diseases, but for the greater part, especially with measles, to secondary broncho-pneu¬ 
monia. They are diseases which the majority of children of all classes have some 
time or other. During even a mild attack the respiratory passages are in a condition 
which, as explained above, makes them specially liable to be attacked by micro¬ 
organisms. Hence it is natural that broncho-pneumonia should appear in proportion 
to the contamination of the air breathed by the patient. In a ward in a children’s 
hospital, where the ventilation was bad, Thaon ( loc . cit.) has observed that the mor¬ 
tality is three times as great as in another with good ventilation. 
In scarlet fever there is no bronchial catarrh, hence the micro-organisms of air are 
probably not a special source of danger. We have inserted the death-rates from 
scarlet fever in the Table, although the number of deaths is too small for any definite 
conclusions to be drawn from them. The death-rate for the year was twice as great 
in the houses of three rooms and upwards as in the one- and two-roomed houses. If, 
however, we take the mean of this and the previous year, for which we also possess 
data as regards scarlet fever, the death-rate (31 deaths in all) is about a third 
greater in one- and two-roomed houses. This increase is not in proportion to the 
increase (two-thirds) in the general death-rate in the lower class of houses, and does 
not compare with the increase from measles, and, to a less marked extent, hooping- 
cough. 
It will be of interest to reproduce here a valuable Table prepared by Professor Max 
Gruber (‘ Wiener Med- Wochenschrift,’ December 26tli, 1885) from Korosi’s statistics 
of the town of Buda-Pesth for the years 1879-82. Korosi had compared the death- 
rates in the lowest class of rooms (“ cellars ”) with the death-rates in the rest of the 
town for various diseases, and the Table shows the percentage increase or decrease in 
the death-rates. 
Percentage increase 
or decrease in death-rate. 
Measles. 
+ 159 
Hooping-cough. 
+ 100 
Scarlet fever. 
- 8 
Croup and diphtheria. 
+ 11 
General death-rate. 
+ 35 
The death-rate from scarlet fever here shows an actual decrease in the lowest class 
of dwelling. It seems just possible that this low death-rate may to some extent be 
accounted for by the same reasons as those for which artificially inoculated small-pox 
is less fatal. We cannot doubt that scarlatina is more common in the lower class of 
houses, and that, ceteris paribus, it is more fatal. 
With diphtheria and croup, broncho-pneumonia is of exceedingly frequent 
p 2 
occur- 
