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The 143 cases in Poplar were notified from 112 premises, and the
92 cases in Bromley from 79 premises*: in the first instance 23 house
drains were found defective, and in the second 11, the smoke test
being used.
Seventy-seven cases in Poplar and 53 in Bromley were removed
to various hospitals as follows:—
Poplar.
Metropolitan Asylums Boards' Hospitals 49
St. John's Nursing Hospital, Lewisham 2
Greenwich Hospital 1
Childrens' Hospital, Shadwell 3
Sick Asylum 7
London Hospital 5
Metropolitan Hospital 3
Charing Cross Hospital 2
German Hospital 1
Poplar Hospital 2
St. Bartholomew's Hospital 2
77
*Note.—This means that 31 cases in Poplar and 13 in Bromley occurred in
houses where typhoid fever already existed. It is my endeavour to make the
friends of patients aware that typhoid fever can be contracted from the urine
(which is not generally known) as well as from the stools, and that the former
requires disinfecting as well as the latter. This fact I have caused to be stated
in the printed directions on the bottles of disinfectants given away to parishioners
in typhoid fever cases. To further jnstify my action in discarding sulphur fumigation
and using a solution of Formic Aldehyde Gas (Formalin) for spraying rooms
after infectious cases, it no doubt will be interesting to learn that a drug called
Urotropin is now given to patients suffering with typhoid fever. Urotropin is
formed by the action of Formalin on Ammonia, and, when taken internally,
Formalin is liberated from the drug after its passage into the urinary tract
(bladder, &c.) which it disinfects, and causes the typhoid baccili to rapidly disappear
from this portion of the body. One cannot educate the public too much
in the matter of preventing the spread of such a terrible disease as typhoid fever
and I trust this note may be of some means in assisting in that direction.