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On the 17th all the children in this Ward were bacteriologically
examined, and one child, Ellen J—, was found to be suffering
from Diphtheria. (Gertrude C—, one of the children swabbed
on this date, was again swabbed on the 21st, and removed to
Hospital on the 22nd, the second examination disclosing the presence
of the Diphtheria bacillus.) On the same day, a child
named Alfred D—, in the Ward opposite, viz., B. II., who was
noticed to be suffering from a nasal discharge, had a swab taken
for bacteriological examination, which proved to be positive. He
was also immediately removed to Hospital.
It therefore became at once evident that the disease was more
widespread than had been anticipated. It was accordingly
arranged to have all the children in the three Children's Wards in
"B" Block examined, and swabs were taken from all of them and
submitted for bacteriological examination. In a large number of
cases the pseudo-diphtheria (Hoffman's bacillus') and other suspicious
organisms were found to be present. As the Infirmary at
the time was very much overcrowded, and consequently no Isolation
Ward was available, it was arranged to turn out all the
children from No. 1 Ward in whom the results of the bacteriological
examination proved negative, and remove from Wards II.
and III. all "suspects " into that Ward. All these cases were kept
under observation, and the more suspicious cases had further bacteriological
examinations made of the discharge from throat or
nose (or both), with the result that another case, in the person of
a child named Rose P—, was notified, and removed to Hospital
on January 24th.
On the 31st January swabs were again taken from the children
isolated in No. I. Ward. Four children : Theodora C—,
Henry P—, Joseph M—and William H—, were found to
have Diphtheria, and at once removed to Hospital. The mother
of the child P—, an infant at the breast, who was with her child
in this Ward, was also bacteriologically examined, and found to
have the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus present in discharge taken from
her nose. She was also at once removed to the Isolation Hospital.
The nurses in the three Wards, who had been exposed to