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4
TYPHOID FEVER.
During the year to which this report refers Typhoid fever
has continued to occupy the attention of the Officers of the
Sanitary Department. The number of cases notified and
the fatality among infected persons marks the disease as
belonging to a type at once diffusive and virulent. Besides
the usual batch of cases which were distributed sparsely
but evenly throughout the metropolitan area, and which do
not seem to bear any causal connexion with one another,
a definite outbreak occurred among the customers of a
milk dealer carrying on business in the outer Wards. The
earliest case of the connected series was notified at the
beginning of the third week of March, and others belonging
to the same group were returned in the later days of the
same month and during the next. The chief force of
the epidemic was felt at Brixton and Stockwell, but the
surrounding districts were not exempted. For a few days
after the first intimation had been made cases followed one
another in close order of succession, and from their number,
simultaneous appearance and distribution fears were entertained
that the outbreak might assume large proportions.
It is a matter of experience that when Typhoid obtains
even a limited foothold in a district before the agency of its
introduction is discovered, it often shows itself capable of
making large inroads upon the public health. The interval
of time named the incubative stage, lying between the
moment of infection and that of the appearance of the
earliest symptom of fever, extends over a period of many
days, and consequently the existence of a local infecting
agency may not be suspected until after seed has been
widely scattered. At Worthing several hundred persons had
become the subjects of infection before the water conveying