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55
From the facts narrated above we were able to take the necessary
steps to deal with the matter and the outbreak quickly terminated.
The prevalence of this disease is generally considered an index of
the sanitary state of a district, and such a small number of cases
in so densely populated a town is an indication of a good sanitary
condition as regards its water carriage system, sewage, drainage, and
good pure water supply.
Five deaths were attributed to this disease during the year,
compared with three in the preceding year.
Upon the recovery or removal of a patient the necessary disinfection
has been carried out, consisting of the stripping and limewashing
of the infected room after fumigation, and of disinfecting the bedding
and infected articles and clothing in the Council's steam disinfector.
Enteric fever, or Typhoid Fever as it is also called, is slowly but
surely succumbing to the measures which have been directed against
it. The part played by shellfish in spreading the infection is becoming
more and more obvious, and new regulations have been made for
controlling the gathering and sale of mussels and other shellfish. The
"carrier" problem is more difficult of solution, as a "carrier" is only
discoverable after a fairly large number of cases have occurred, and
it is sometimes a very difficult matter to deal with a known "carrier."
The situation is this : The carrier of the germs of enteric fever may
be a person who earns his or her living by preparing food for other
people, and although it may have been some years since he or she
had enteric fever, the person is a continual source of danger to the
community, and this danger can only be removed by supplying the
individual with other employment, which will offer no opportunity for
the contamination of food.
The death rate for Deptford was 0.05 per 1,000, whilst for the
preceding year it was 0'03. The rate for London was 0.03 The case
mortality for 1915 was 13.5 per cent, compared with 33.3 for 1914.
The cases were distributed in the different wards as follows:—
East 3, North 24, North-West 1, and South-East 9.
Bacteriological examinations were made of 25 specimens of blood,
of which 14 were found to be positive and 11 negative.
The following table gives the situation in the borough of each case
and the general condition of the dwellings :—