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to be immediately received into the Board's hospitals, the Managers are making
arrangements, should it become necessary, for placing a supply of antitoxic serum in
the hands of the several Metropolitan medical officers of health, as well as in the
hands of the Board's medical superintendents for distribution. It is anticipated that
this arrangement will enable medical practitioners, who may desire to make use of
the remedy, to obtain a supply of the antitoxin with the least possible loss of time.
SMALLPOX.
One case of this dangerous malady was notified in Shoreditch during the year.
On May 16th, a young man, aged 22, residing at a house in Shepherdess Walk, where
he was a lodger, was certified to be suffering from smallpox, and removed to the ship
Castalia. He was a carpet-planner by trade and worked for a firm in Stanhope
Street, Euston Road. From enquiries made he appears to have beaten carpets
belonging to a house in the West End where some cases of illness had occurred which
were subsequently found to be cases of smallpox. This patient had been vaccinated
in infancy. The case was one of the hæmorrhagic variety and terminated fatally in
a few days.
All the necessary steps were taken with as little loss of time as possible, with
regard to disinfection and the premises were visited at frequent intervals and the
inmates kept under observation until the danger of the occurrence of further cases
was past.
According to the report of the Ambulance Committee of the Metropolitan
Asylums Board 95 cases notified as smallpox were received into the hospitals of the
Board, 84 of which were during the first five months of the year. The total number
of cases certified in the Metropolis and removed to the wharves during the year was
121, a considerable percentage of these were found by the Board's medical officers
not to be suffering from smallpox and were returned to their homes.
The majority of the cases occurred in the sanitary districts on the south side of
the Thames.
VACCINATION IN SHOREDITCH.
The official returns for the year 1893 shew that of 4,460 children born in
Shoreditch, 3,172 were successfully vaccinated, 11 were insusceptible of vaccination,
556 died unvaccinated, and the vaccination of 23 was postponed, leaving 698 or 16.2
percent. unaccounted for; the returns for 1894 shew that of 4,362 children born,
2,366 were successfully vaccinated, 13 were insusceptible, 505 died unvaccinated, and
the vaccination of 15 was postponed, leaving 1,463 or 33.9 per cent. unaccounted for.
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