View report page

6
from the drains, the provision of improved traps for the
inefficient bell-traps, and of a better water supply to closets, will
be of any use in preventing or ameliorating small-pox, we
certainly ought not to have so many cases as before, because
these sanitary works have been carried out far more systematically
since the appointment of the last Inspector in 1884, than
they were or could have been previously done. This will be
referred to again when speaking of the sanitary works performed.
In my former annual reports, I have from time to time
pointed out the excessive mortality from small-pox in the
vicinity of the Small-pox Hospital, and in my report for 1884
I showed, by spot-maps, not only the large excess around the
Hospital, but that infection by traffic and personal intercourse
did not suffice to explain, to more than a slight extent, the
amount and direction of the infection. Indeed, I stated in my
evidence before the Royal Commissioners in 1881, and in my
annual report for 1884, that I believed the disease to be spread
partly by aerial infection. I am glad to find that the Medical
Officer of the Local Government Board holds that it (the
infection) "is proved to extend to the distance of at least a
mile, and to be independent of lines of human communication"
He further points out that whilst "Hackney and Camberwell,
which for 20 years before 1870, stood amongst districts of the
first rank in their freedom from small-pox, they afterwards
became debased to a place amongst the worst." "This was
after the establishment of Homerton Hospital in Hackney in
1871, and of Stockwell and Deptford Hospitals on either side
of Camberwell." He also shows from the Registrar General's
Reports, that up to 1870 the death-rates from small-pox in the
Provinces to 100 in London were 72, 59, 90, 81, 62 and 41 for
each quinquennial period since l838; but since 1870 they have
been only 59, 16 and 14 in the three quinquennial periods
1870-84, showiug a very large decrease in the Provinces and an
increase in London. Under these circumstances, I trust there
will be a strong opposition offered to the treatment of even a