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The Council at the meeting held September 28th, decided to make application to the School
Board for the necessary permission to inspect the children, and the work was put in hand forthwith.
In many cases children were absent from school when the examination was made, and a
large number of parents, by signing the objection form, availed themselves of the loop-hole provided
by the Board, enabling them to deprive their children of the proffered protection. Amongst
the children examined many were found to be unvaccinated, mainly those who had been born
outside the borough, and so were unknown to the vaccination officer. The School Board having
refused pel-mission for vaccination of children at the schools, the homes had to be visited and
persuasion exercised to obtain parental consent, which was generally given. The managers of
voluntary schools cordially acceded to the request of the Guardians for facilities to examine
the children. In the result many children, and not a few adults, parents and others, at the
houses visited, secured the desired protection.
Hospital Accommodation.—In view of the rapid development of the epidemic, in the autumn,
the Managers of the Asylums Hoard deemed it necessary to close Gore Farm Hospital to fever
and diphtheria convalescents, in order to its use for convalescent small-pox cases, the hospital
having been built for the latter purpose. Somewhat later, a temporary hospital for 300 patients
was erected at Long Reach, near the hospital ships, and was brought into use at the end of
January, 1902. The accommodation provided at Gore Farm, and Long Reach, and the Hospital
Ships, has, to the present writing (April), sufficed for the needs of the Metropolis, and to enable the
Managers to admit some hundreds of patients from extra-metropolitan districts. The Hospital
Committee when reporting on the subject, in October, expressed the belief that they were rightly
interpreting the Board's policy in regarding the prompt isolation of small-pox patients as of
paramount importance—a view from which the Managers did not dissent; and means to this end
have been adopted, with lavish care and cost. (See further reference to the subject, page 56). But
it will always be a matter for regret that the permanent hospital at Joyce Green should not have
been taken in hand and completed long before the present epidemic began—not that I expect
accommodation to fall short without it, but that a large and probably unnecessary outlay on
temporary hospitals might have been avoided. (The general subject of hospital accommodation
is dealt with at page 54).
MEASLES.
Measles was the cause of 77 deaths, compared with 120, 24, and 98, in the three preceding
years, the corrected decennial average being 78. All but five of the deaths occurred under five
years of age, and 15 under one year. Seventy-two of the deaths belong to the Town sub-district
and five to Brompton.
The deaths from this cause in London, as a whole, were 1,958, and approximately G80
below the corrected decennial average (2,638).
In the report for 1900, reference was made to a communication from the Public Health
Committee of the County Council intended to elicit the opinion of the Council whether it was
advisable that the County Council should include measles in the term " dangerous infectious
disease," for the purposes set out in certain sections of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891 ?
The sections specified relate (inter alia) to the exposure of infected persons and articles (68);
the conveyance of infected persons in public conveyances (70); the casting of infected rubbish
into ash-pits (62); the disinfection of infected premises, articles and public conveyances (60, 61,
65 and 74); the letting of infected houses (63 and 64), and the removal to hospital of infected
persons without proper lodging (66). In the last four-weekly report for 1900, I dealt with this
matter, and in the early part of 1901 the Council, on the recommendation of the Public Health
Committee, intimated to the County Council that they were in favour of the sections of the
Act which prohibit the exposure in public places of persons suffering from an infectious disease,
and the use of public vehicles for the conveyance of infected persons, being made applicable to
measles. A copy of my report on the subject (No. 13, 1900) was, at the same time, forwarded
to the County Council. The matter does not appear to have been carried any further at present;
probably it will receive consideration in connection with the proposed Bill for the amendment
of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, the introduction of which cannot be much longer
delayed.
SCARLET FEVER.
The cases notified as scarlet fever were 475, compared with 474, 443, and 367, in the three
preceding years successively; 295 in North Kensington and 180 in South Kensington. The
deaths were 15 (12 below the corrected decennial average); 12 and 3 in the Town and Brompton
sub-districts respectively. The case-mortality was 3.2 per cent. Eight of the deaths were of
children under five years of age; and 11 took place in hospitals to which 383 cases were removed.
The deaths in the three preceding years were 23, 10, and 4, respectively.