Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Annual report on the health, sanitary condition, &c., &c., of the Parish of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington for the year, 1898
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diagnosis was not made until the 21st. Death supervened on
the 25th. The undertaker, aged 30 (case 8), had assisted in
coffining the wife on March 1st; he fell ill on the 10th, took to
his bed on the 12th, and was removed to the Western Hospital
on the 19th with a certificate of enteric fever ; the diagnosis
of typhus was made on the 21st. The patient ultimately
recovered. The next cases (9 and 10) were John (aged 20),
son, and Ellen, (aged 18), daughter of the original sufferer, who
fell ill on or about 12th and 14th March respectively. Both
were removed to the infirmary with certificates of influenza.
The man died, the woman recovered. On the 18th March
another daughter Julia (aged 17, case 11), fell ill at her place.
She had attended her mother's funeral and had also visited
her brother and sister at the infirmary. I saw this patient
with Dr. Ensor on the 21st March, and advised her removal
on a certificate of typhus, to the South-Eastern Hospital,
where the diagnosis was confirmed by Dr. Turner, the medical
superintendent. The next three cases (12, 13, and 14) were
a man, aged 24, his wife, aged 23, and their only child, aged 2
years. They occupied Flat 19 at Western Dwellings, the
door of which, as already mentioned, faces the door of Flat 20,
at a distance of ten feet. The illness of these persons was
regarded as influenza, and with certificates to that effect they
were removed to the infirmary. But Dr. Potter, having received
from Dr. Ensor a cautionary message, diagnosed typhus,
and removed all three patients the same day (21st) to the
South-Eastern Hospital: all of them recovered. That they
contracted the malady from the inmates of Flat 20 there is
no question : the two families were on friendly and visiting
terms, and the young wife had helped her neighbours during
their illness. The only remaining case, making 15 in all, was
that of a woman from St. George's parish, Southwark, who had
gone to Flat 20 to look after the children of the widower (case
1). She went home on April 7th, and was seen next day
by a doctor to whom she made no communication of the