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50
persons. The patient was employed as a railway porter at
Hither Green Station, and stated he was frequently brought
into contact with workmen employed at the Small Pox Hospital,
an incident accountable probably for the infection. W. D.
resided with his mother, who carried on the business of a
domestic laundry at the above address. Laundry work was
carried on in the house until March 3rd, on which date all the
work in hand was transferred to the next house (also a domestic
laundry). This course was taken by the mother, who on this
date first had suspicions as to the nature of the illness. On
visiting the premises on March 6th, immediately after a
telephone message from the medical attendant certifying the
case, I endeavoured to obtain a list of customers from the
proprietors of each laundry. This list was refused, and, on
threatening proceedings, a few names wore given which
did not account for the amount of work in hand. Directions
were given to remove all laundry and textile materials from both
houses to the disinfecting station for disinfection. This was
carried out. The laundry after disinfection was purposely
mixed. The proprietors of each laundry were then requested to
send representatives to sort the materials according to the
various owners. In this way we obtained the names and
addresses of the various customers. We refused to return
the articles to the laundry, and communicated the
circumstances to each owner, giving them an opportunity
of refusing the articles if they preferred to do so.
Both laundries were stripped, disinfected and cleansed, and
some of the workers re-vaccinated. Vaccination or re-vaccination
was obstinately refused by members of W. D.'s family, in spite
of persuasion by their doctor, the Vaccination Officer and myself,
the patient's mother being chiefly responsible for the refusal.
The result of this refusal was unfortunate. (See Cases 29, 38,
89, 40 and 51). None of the future cases occurring in the
district were traced to the clothing referred to above. The