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The following more detailed information is contained in the reports of medical officers of
health—
Paddington.—Account is given of an outbreak in the Victoria Orphanage. The source of
infection of the first case, an inmate, could not be traced. He appears to have infected three other
children at varying intervals, and after recovery was sent to the branch home at Hampstead. Some
two months later, six children were removed from this branch to the Paddington institution, all suffering
from diphtheria.
Kensington.—A child, aged three years, died from diphtheria. She was apparently infected by
her father, whose ailment had been regarded as common sore throat. "The family medical attendant
contracted the disease and died, having been infected by either the child or her father, whose illness
apparently originated in the City at offices found to be in an insanitary condition. Two of this
gentleman's clerks had previously suffered from sore throats, the presumably specific character of
which had not been recognised."
St. George, Hanover-square.—Five cases of diphtheria occurred in June in the nursery at
Fulham-road workhouse, the disease having been introduced by one of the children, who was frequently
taken out by its mother.
Bethnal-green.—The medical officer of health reports a case of diphtheria in the person of a
hairdresser whom he found at work after the man's disease had been notified. The medical officer states,
"I warned him of the consequences of his behaviour, but ineffectually, since the inspector found him
two days afterwards still at his business, and a source of infection, for two cases were traced to this
cause. When this man was free from infection he was summoned to Worship-street, where he was
1 See footnote (1), page 7.