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I am also of opinion that the residences of your Chief Inspector
and Medical Officer of Health should be connected by telephone
with the Town Hall.
Signed,
GEORGE PADDOCK BATE, M.D.,
Medical Officer of Health for Belhnal Green.
The matter was carefully considered by the Public Health Committee.
Mr. E. was called upon for an explanation, but he absolutely
denied all knowledge of the nature of his shop girl's illness, and as it
was impossible to prove that he was aware she was suffering from
small pox, it was decided not to institute Police Court proceedings.
With reference to this case, I extract the following paragraph
from the 1902 report of Dr. Thomas, the Medical Officer of Health
for the Eastern District of Pontardawe in Wales: —
Early in January we had the misfortune of having small pox imported from
London into Ystalyfera, and before becoming aware of the fact we had, in
nine different families, eighteen cases of small pox. Fourteen of these were
traced to direct contact with the imported case, and occurred almost simultaneously;
the remaining four arose probably from secondary infection from
some of the infected centres. There being at the time no small pox hospital
in the district we had to place our reliance entirely upon isolating the cases as
well as we could in the infected houses, and in preaching and practising vaccination
and revaccination throughout the whole district. And it was really
gratifying to find the readiness with which the people, especially those residing in
the infected area, availed themselves of the protection of vaccination. During
the early excitement of the first outbreak the applications to be vaccinated
were so numerous that it was with great difficulty sufficient calf lymph could
be procured to meet the demand. There were in all revaccinated over eleven
hundred persons, who were nearly all residents of Ystalyfera or the immediate
neighbourhood.
Particulars of a number of noteworthy centres of small pox infection,
and methods by which the disease gets distributed, will be found
fully set forth in my monthly reports for 1902, but it is only necessary
to recapitulate two of these :—
On June 17th my attention was called by an anonymous letter to
a house in Baxendale Street; here I found a lad aged 15, and a man
aged 27, both suffering from well marked small pox. No doctor
had been called in. The father said he did not know the nature of
his son's illness, but I felt certain this ignorance was assumed.