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36
The Health Committee and the Vestry adopted this view, and
works to amend the defects were ordered, many of which have
been carried out at the time of writing.
Subsequently an outbreak was found to exist in No. 4 and
6 sanitary districts, the latter especially. It was found that most
of the cases were attending the infant's department of the Plough
Road School, and further investigations showed that a child
suffering from diphtheritic sore throat had been attending school,
without the true nature of her illness being suspected, and it was
not until other cases occurred in her family and in the same
house that she was medically examined, and found to have just
recovered from diphtheria.
I examined the school, and found that the whole of the
children from the different class rooms assembled together in the
main hall, and therefore recommended the Vestry to close the
whole of the infants' department for three weeks; an order was
made to that effect, and the schools closed and disinfected, with
the result that there has been no recurrence of the disease.
Another cause of diphtheria infection is the return of
children from hospital still in an infectious condition, generally
in my opinion, from the nasal cavities still containing the bacillus
causing the disease. A case occurred in Henley Street, where a
child was prematurely returned, subsequently six persons were
attacked and sent to hospital from the same house, together with
the original patient, for treatment.
On June 14th the Committee had under consideration a
report to the effect that a child whilst suffering from diphtheria
had been taken to St. George's Hospital in a perambulator,
thereby contravening Section 68 of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891. It was alleged that the parents had acted under the
advice of one of the Medical Staff at the Hospital. A letter was
directed to be sent requesting that the hospital authorities would
exercise care in seeing that a proper ambulance was in future
provided.