View report page

12
The places where the greatest number of measles have occurred
have been Cobourg-row, Willow-street, and Vauxhall-bridge-road;
the outbreak has, however, only been severe during November
and December, and has spread more or less, over the entire
district; but out of the 223 cases there have only been 3 deaths.
Scarlet fever has been more or less prevalent throughout the
whole year, and reached its highest in September, when there
were 66 cases, but out of the 410 cases that have been reported
altogether, only 23 have proved fatal, 6 in the parish and 17
outside ; the streets where the greatest number has occurred
have been Peabody-buildings, Regency-street, and Willow-street,
but this has also spread over the entire parish. Diphtheria has
been much less than last year, there being 82 cases instead of
143, and out of these 82, 15 died in the parish, and 16 in the
outlying hospitals to which they were conveyed, and the disease
has not shown itself at any one particular spot more than
another.
In the first six months of the year 42 cases of Small-pox
occurred. Another case was notified in August, three more in
September, and one in October, making 47 cases in the year.
Of these, 31 occurred in March, April, and May—16 at a
common lodging-house in Great Peter-street, 14 at a Salvation
Army Shelter in the Horseferry-road, and 3 among the employes
of a licensed victualler carrying on business near the lodginghouse
above-named. There are upwards of 600 beds in the
lodging-house, and 200 in the Salvation Army Shelter; but the
separate beds are not distinguished by any mark or number, and
the name of the man sleeping in any particular bed on any one
night is not taken. It is easy to see, therefore, what obstacles
presented themselves both in obtaining the satisfactory disinfection
of the bedding and in tracing the individual sufferers in
order to ascertain their condition with respect to vaccination.
The authorities supervising the lodging-house are the police,
whose officers assisted the Vestry's inspectors with every information
in their power, as, in fact, did the persons in charge of
the Salvation Army Shelter. From this place, while the men
were in bed, their clothes were taken to the disinfecting oven by
the Vestry's inspectors and returned in time for the men's use
on their rising in the early morning. All the sufferers were
removed for treatment to the hospital ships of the Metropolitan
Asylums Board, lying off Greenhithe, and in many instances it
became necessary for me to communicate with the patients, with
the assistance of the officers of the Asylums Board, before the
position of the bed they had occupied could be ascertained for
disinfection purposes. Meanwhile, as there were signs of the
disease spreading, the closing of the places was insisted upon,