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58
Notwithstanding the total decrease, several of the districts
shew an increase during the year, most notably No. 5, whereas
Nos. 3 and 6 shew great reductions in number. The largest
number of cases notified in any one week was during the second in
October, when twenty-eight cases came to notice, whereas in
both the last week of August and that of December, only four
notifications were received. The extremes for four-weekly
periods were 25 and 92, the former being the last two weeks of
August and the first two of September, and the latter, the last
week of October, and the first three of November. In consequence
of the prevalence of the disease about the latter period I submitted
at the request of the Vestry, a special report dealing with the
last three weeks of November (ending 2nd December). The
report shewed that sixty cases were notified during that period,
by far the larger proportion being in Districts Nos. 2 and 5,
namely, twenty and twenty-one cases respectively, the remaining
districts being comparatively free. Of the twenty cases in No.
2 District, four were traceable to personal infection, but otherwise
school attendance, milk supply, or any other common cause
could not be discovered as the origin of the outbreak in either
that or No. 5. District, where six of the twenty-one cases were
attributed to personal infection. It will be remembered that in
consequence of the extreme prevalence of measles amongst
scholars at Holden Street Board School, the latter was closed,
and there is some possibility that the increased amount of scarlet
fever during the year is to an extent traceable to, or associated
with that outbreak.
/
Two instances occurred during the year in which patients
were exposed in public vehicles by those having charge of them.
In the first case a child was taken home in a tram from
Westminster Hospital, and in the second case a patient was
brought in a cab from Chelsea. In both instances the offenders
appeared to have acted in ignorance of the law and they were
therefore not proceeded against but duly cautioned. The cab