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22
SECTION III—SPECIAL REPORT.
Special Report on an Outbreak of Enteric Fever
in the Parish.
In accordance with the resolution of the Vestry of the 2nd inst., I beg
herewith to submit a brief report upon an outbreak of enteric or typhoid
fever within your parish.
In making such report I propose as nearly as possible to follow the
lines set forth in the letter from the Local Government Board to the Vestry
dated the 1st October, 1900, and to furnish in the words of the Board—
" Such information as can be given with regard to the number of non-fatal
as well as of fatal cases, and to the circumstances in which they have
occurred with reference particularly to the purity of the water used for
drinking, to the drainage, and to the method of disposal of excrement in
the localities where the disease has been prevalent." Also to state—" the
measures taken by the County Council or the Medical Officer of Health
for checking the spread of the disease."
One-hundred-and-two cases of enteric fever have occurred in St.
George's Parish between the 14th of September last and the 8th day of
present month. From among this number there have been—so far as I can
ascertain from the weekly returns of the Sub-Registrars as well as from
information afforded me by the Metropolitan Asylums Board—two deaths.
Of the total of 102 cases 60 are males and 42 females. Ninety-seven of
the cases have occurred in Ward I. (St. Michael's), 3 in Ward II. (St.
Paul's), and 2 in Ward III. (St. George's). The infected area from which
97 of the cases have been notified lies in the north-east part of Ward I.,
and is bounded roughly on the north by Pocock Street, Suffolk Grove (in St.
Saviour's), and the Southwark Bridge Road, on the south by the Borough
Road, on the east by the Marshalsea Road and Borough High Street, and
on the west by the Blackfriars Road. The inhabitants of this area who
have been attacked by the fever are mostly of the poorer and labouring
classes, and are drawn from densely-crowded blocks—such as Queen's
Building's (housing upwards of 3,000 persons on about 3 acres of ground).
Many, also, come from thickly populated tenement houses situated in
Bittern Street, Toulmin Street, Little Suffolk Street, Borough Road, Friar