London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Finsbury 1914

Annual report on the public health of Finsbury for the year 1914

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100
bowl. The father slept out. The eldest boy, 11 years old, had
not had measles, and was nursing the patient during the absence
of the mother. The mother, a girl 13 years old, and the patient
slept in one bed in the kitchen. Four other boys slept in the bedroom.
A week later the patient was found playing in the street.
He had gone out so that the girl, 13 years, might wash the floor
and clean up the home. The result was that all the unprotected
children got measles.
2. The parents, 2 boys, and one girl lived and slept in one
room. During the day time " isolation " was attempted by keeping
the unprotected children at one end of the room, and the baby
with measles at the other end near the fire. At night all the family
slept in one bed—the parents and baby at the top and the unaffected
children at the bottom of the bed.
3. The parents, 3 boys and 2 girls lived in 2 rooms. A boy, 5
years old, had measles. The father was a window cleaner in
casual employment, earning 3s. a week. The mother was a charwoman.
The boy was taken to a hospital with the measles rash
well out, and was detained there for some considerable time awaiting
his turn in the midst of many other children. The mother was
given some medicine for the child but did not use it. She used
instead some "cough mixture" given to her by a neighbour. She
gave the unaffected children some of this mixture in order to
protect them, as she thought, from the infection, but she took no
precautions to clean the spoon which was used and licked in
common by all the children. The result was that all the other
children took measles. The family were under notice to leave and
were threatened with ejectment. They paid no rent. They were
rather pleased, therefore, when all the children had the disease.
They were all kept in bed for some considerable time. They
asserted that their landlord would not have the inhumanity to turn
them out of their rooms as long as the children were ill and in bed.
5. The patient was in bed and had nothing on. His mother
had just given him for dinner a plateful of boiled potatoes, which
she had placed on the bedclothes over his chest as he lay on his