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5
the spores of disease fell under suspicion; and the history
generally of epidemic outbreaks affords numerous examples
where many people imbibe the latent poison before any
single individual actually is observed to suffer from unmistakable
signs of the disease. Consequently, when epidemic
Typhoid makes its appearance, it seems to descend
on the selected area with sudden violence, attacks
numbers at the same moment, and induces a sense
of insecurity almost akin to panic. So in the epidemic
under consideration, at the time when information of the
appearance of Typhoid at Stockwell had come to hand
through the notification of a single case, fifteen people
living in the same district, and inhabiting houses situated
widely apart, were actually lying in bed suffering from the
incipient symptoms of the disease. In like manner, on the
morning of the 2nd of April, when steps were being
taken to shut down the sources of infection at the Dairy
under suspicion, the notification of twelve cases only had
been made, while information which subsequently came to
hand proves beyond a question of doubt that at this very
time fifty-eight persons living within the pale of the
infected area had already imbibed the poison, and were
then either passing through the incubative period of the
complaint, or undergoing the sufferings contingent on the
later and more definitely marked stages.
The sudden appearance of many cases in a circumscribed
area, after the manner illustrated by the Stockwell epidemic,
indicates the existence of a local centre of infection, and distinguishes
the outbreak from others where the number of
cases is few, their position isolated, and their distribution
general throughout the Metropolis. Typhoid characterized
by the former mode of incidence is seldom present amongst
us, by the latter, always.