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23
(5.) Alfred L. (age 14 years), living at 4, W—
Street, a fellow schoolmate of Harry J. (See
No. 2 above).
The usual precautions were taken as to isolation, disinfection,
etc., and the infected rooms, in each case, were
stripped. No further case has occurred in this district,
which is too far removed to have any connection with the
districts mentioned in Groups I. and II.
The first case (John L,) of Group III. appears to have
become infected at New Shoreham, where he had been
spending his holiday, the disease manifesting itself three
days after his return to Lambeth.
Careful enquiries failed to connect any of the cases of
Groups I., II. and III., with infected water or milk, or even
with oysters (or other shellfish), and by a process of exclusion
I am driven to regard, therefore, the cause of the outbreaks
as contact from person to person—(1) directly, or (2) indirectly,
through infected clothes, food, etc. Further, the
difficulties in diagnosing Typhoid Fever in the early stages
of the disease are well known to all medical men of experience,
and in some of the cases mentioned above, such
difficulties have been the cause of the disease spreading
locally. Fortunately, bacteriology has come to our aid
with the Widal or Typhoid re-action test, which readily
shows itself after the first week of the disease, so that there is
less excuse now than formerly for errors in the diagnosis of
Typhoid, and as the Vestry has provided free of cost such
bacteriological methods for the use of medical men in Lambeth,
the Vestry is justified in looking forward to the
disappearance of localised Typhoid epidemics, such as I
have described, and which are in the first place due to cases
being undiagnosed in the early stages, when infection is
well-known to exist.