View report page

81
The cases notified correspond to the following annual rates
per 1,000 of the estimated population of each ward.

Altogether, 257 cases were notified in Fulham from 191 houses
during the 13 weeks ending the 24th November, and of these 3
contracted the disease outside the District, and 5 were found after
admission to hospital, to be not suffering from Diphtheria.
The prevalence of the disease was largely due to the existence
of unrecognised cases, and in 15 households I found, as the result
of enquiries which I made at the time, strong evidence that other
members of the family had, in all probability, previously suffered
from mild attacks of the disease, which had entirely escaped
detection. Subsequent bacteriological examination, by the Jenner
Institute, of material which I took from the patients tended
to confirm this view.
The following were instances of mistaken diagnosis from
which other cases resulted.
A child was ascertained to have died from Diphtheria who had
been an out patient at the Victoria Hospital, and had attended
there the afternoon prior to the morning of his death, being supposed
to be suffering from Bronchitis. In October, a child,
seven years of age, living in Langford Road, died in St. Thomas's
Hospital from Diphtheritic Paralysis, the nature of the initial
illness not having been recognised until his admission into the
hospital, about 10 days before his death.
In two cases the infection appeared to have been conveyed by
the " washing" which had been sent home from an infected house
before the nature of the illness was known.