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* Estimated war losses of 74,000 excluded.
Infectious Diseases.
The notifications, attack-rates and death-rates of the principal infectious diseases
in London in 1935 and earlier years are shown in tables 39 to 42, and for the
constituent metropolitan boroughs in 1935 in table 37.
Anthrax.
Two cases of anthrax were notified during the year, one in each of the boroughs
of Lambeth and Deptford. The case in Lambeth proved fatal. The following
account of this case, which has been furnished by the medical officer of health of
the borough of Lambeth, is of interest as it illustrates the care which is taken to
ascertain the source of infection and to prevent further cases arising :—
I received a notification of the case of anthrax on 9th July and information reached me
at the same time that the man had died in the early hours of 7th July. From inquiries made it
appears that a malignant pustule was noticed on the cheek on the afternoon of 3rd July, but
unfortunately the family doctor was not sent for until 6th July, and on his arrival the man was
moribund and died at home from anthrax septicaemia.
His shaving brush which was found to contain anthrax spores and bacilli and had been
purchased, according to the widow, two years or more before, was somewhat similar to, but, owing
to its worn condition, not definitely identifiable as a brush missing from a consignment of twelve
shaving brushes seized in June, 1932, all of which were found to contain anthrax spores. In
connection with these, information was received from the medical officer of health of Stepney in
1932, that a man had died from anthrax contracted from a shaving brush purchased in that
borough, and that shaving brushes from the same consignment had been sold to two shops in
Lambeth. The brushes were immediately collected, but, unfortunately, one had been bought
the day before by a chance customer who could not be traced. This shop is in the same street
as the home of the deceased, two or three minutes walk distant.
The hospitals in the district were warned at the time to be on the look-out for a malignant
pustule in order that no time should be lost before serum was given, but as no case occurred, it
was believed that the customer was not a Lambeth resident.
Considerable difficulty was experienced in tracing the source of supply to the wholesale dealer
in Stepney in 1932, but as the result of careful inquiry it transpired that a shopkeeper now in