View report page

64
owing to its being an admirable nutrient medium for micro-organisms;
there is. therefore, no improbability in assuming that organisms
capable of causing a septic form of sore-throat, and as yet not isolated,
may similarly find in it a suitable medium for growth and activity.
2. To my circular letter I received 67 replies, which may be
classified under the following heads:—
(a) Replies where cases such as described had occurred in the
writers' practices and giving the source of the milk supply. Of
these I received 19.
(b) Replies where no cases such as described had occurred in the
writers' practices. Of these I received 43.
(c) Indefinite replies. Too ambiguous to be classified under either
of above heads. Of these I received 5.
The five replies under (c) need no comment, and with respect to
the 43 replies under (b) I have to remark that they all came from
medical practitioners with only one or two exceptions practising in
the southern half of Hackney—roughly, south of a line beginning at
the junction of the Farleigh Road with Stoke Newington Road on the
west, and continued along the Downs Roads and the Millfields Road
to the Eastern boundary of the parish. As the practice of medical
men is generally in their immediate neighbourhood, the legitimate
inference from these 43 replies is that the disease was not prevalent
to any appreciable extent south of the line described.
The 19 replies under (a) give account of no less than 151 cases of
sore throat illness in 88 households, all occurring, with very few
exceptions, in Upper Clapton and Stamford Hill. Of these totals,
138 cases occurred in 75 households, all of which were supplied with
milk by X, the remaining 13 cases occurring in 13 households
supplied with milk by seven other dealers. That is to say, over 85
per cent. of the households in which sore throat illness occurred were
supplied with milk by X, and less than 15 per cent. by other dealers.
One or two remarkable instances have occurred in distant parts of
the parish, in households supplied by X but where his milk was not
expected to be supplied.