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due to the greater use made of the anti-toxin treatment of the
disease, an opinion strengthened by the conclusions arrived at
in a memorandum issued by the Medical Superintendents of
the Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals, in which they
re-affirm the statements referred to in my last report as to the
great remedial value of anti-toxin.
Among the notifications occurs one to which we are
happily in Camberwell little accustomed to, namely, typhus.
The patients notified as suffering from this disease had been
previously notified to us as suffering from enteric fever, and
the diagnosis of typhus was only arrived at after they had been
removed to the hospital. One of them died and the certificate
stated the cause of death as typhus fever, with the additional
remark that a post mortem examination had been held.
From the same house a fourth patient was sent to the hospital
as suffering from enteric fever. In this instance we received
no second notification from the hospital stating in the opinion
of their medical staff that the patient was attacked by typhus.
The house whence they were removed was considered by us
to have had typhus fever in so far as the disinfection was
concerned, which was arranged on a more extensive plan than
is usual. There was no extension of the disease in the street,
although it is poor and thickly populated.
We were unable to trace the source of the disease:
there had been cases of illness in the house among some
younger persons as far back as the beginning of April, but I
cannot think that these were in any way connected with the
outbreak of such a highly contagious disease as typhus, for if
this had existed there unrecognised the whole street would
probably have suffered in a greater or lesser degree; the
notifications moreover of typhus fever were made at the end
of June, nearly three months after the first appearance of
illness in the house.
During the year an outbreak of small pox occurred in
Toulon Street, Wyndham Road, one of the most densely
populated as well as one of the poorest streets in the whole
Parish. The first to be attacked was an unvaccinated infant
two years of age, ten days later a second case was notified
from the same house, the patient this time being a boy 10
years old. After this two more persons were notified, with
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