View report page

17
to hospital from 52, Cranbrook Street on January 9th. She had
been taken by her mother to stay for Christmas with some relatives
in Bentham Road, South Hackney. Amongst the guests at the
Christmas party was a little boy from Churchill Road, Hackney,
who was said to be convalescent from chicken pox. Seven other
members of the family at Churchill Road were subsequently
attacked with small pox. A. C., a female aged 14 years, vaccinated
in infancy, was removed from Chisenhale Road on February 15th.
She had visited the family in Churchill Road a few days after
Christmas. The Public Vaccinator was immediately communicated
with. He visited the two houses and vaccinated most of the
inmates. The premises were carefully disinfected, cleansed, and
the walls stripped, under the personal supervision of Mr. Foot, and
no fresh case arose.
In July a Russian Pole was reported to be suffering from small
pox. The family occupied the two basement rooms of a house in
Bethnal Green Road. The man had recently arrived from Poland,
and was said to have been very ill on board the steamer. This I
suppose was put down to sea sickness ; anyway he had been in bed
a week before he was seen by a medical man. The case was
correctly diagnosed and removed to hospital without delay. The
same measures as to vaccination and disinfection were adopted as
in the previous cases. The fourth case was that of a girl, aged 18,
in Northampton Street. She was removed on July 18th on the
certificate of one of the London Hospital medical officers. We
fortunately heard of her removal, and the necessary steps as to disinfection,
etc., were taken without loss of time. The notification
certificate was not received until the 20th, and no history could be
obtained. I regret to say that we have frequent cause of complaint
against the resident medical officers of the London Hospital
in respect to the tardy notification of infectious cases. Occasionally
one of these gentlemen forgets altogether to send the certificate,
and when written to says he thought someone else had notified.
Remonstrance appears to be useless. The Committee are loath to
prosecute, but their patience is nearly exhausted. I am of
opinion that the prompt and efficient action of your Chief Inspector