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36
Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
not exist, they endeavour to close the chimney with the first thing that comes to hand
—canvas, sacking, or mattress—and, if through stress of circumstance, the mattress
has to be used, it is not afterwards disinfected or removed.
Until the last few weeks the windows have not, as a rule, been sealed by the
pasting of paper, in order to prevent the escape of the sulphur fumes. Some vessel
belonging to the tenant, either pail, shovel, coal scuttle or basin is taken, the sulphur
placed in it and ignited, the men then leave the room, paste paper round the door,
plug the key hole. Throughout these operations—even when carrying the infected
articles out of the house—the men wear their ordinary clothes, without overalls.
On arrival at the Disinfecting House, the man in charge puts on overalls, takes
the articles out of the bag, and places them in the machine, but he does not disinfect
his overalls.
When the goods have been disinfected, before opening the door of the disinfecting
machine, the man removes his overalls, and in his ordinary clothes (which may have
been infected by the removal of the goods from the house) takes these goods from the
apparatus, and places them in a second truck to take them back to the house.
As a rule the room is opened by the disinfecting men—thus, practically, no supervision
has been extended over their proceedings.
With regard to the overalls worn while removing the infected articles from the
truck to the disinfecting apparatus, your Committee find that they are never disinfected,
and that they are sent to the wash with the towels from the Public Lavatories;
and, while your Committee are anxious not to attach undue importance to this point,
they are constrained to observe that there has been recently a case of typhoid fever in
the house of the woman who washes these articles.
In justice to the men who do the disinfecting, it is necessary to say, that, as far
as the Committee can learn, no written instructions have been given of late years by
the Head of the Sanitary Department, serious as the state of things is, so that it cannot
be said that they failed to obey orders.
Your Committee find that it is the practice of the Sanitary Inspectors to call as
soon as they conveniently can after the removal of the patient, to learn whether the
disinfection has been carried out; for them to superintend the process has been a rare
event. It has not been the invariable practice to recommend that the room should be
scrubbed, or that the furniture should be washed ; this omission seems the more serious
in view of the importance which modern sanitary authorities attach to soap and water
As regards the value of disinfection by sulphur, your Committee is left in a
position of uncertainty. On the one hand, the Medical Officer informed them, that it
might be necessary to provide scales, so that the amount of sulphur consumed might
be in exact proportion to the amount of cubic space in the room. On the other hand,
when referring to a room in which the register had never been closed during sulphuration,
and which room the tenants had opened themselves—because the men did not
return to open it—the Medical Officer of Health stated, as his opinion, that the nonclosing
of the register would be of little importance, provided that the room was well
aired afterwards.
In the course of the inquiry, it was found that there had been an outbreak of
scarlet fever, with one or two cases of diphtheria, in Pardoner Street. Between July
25t.h and August 17th, twelve cases of these diseases were certified in this small street,
and the number was brought up to fifteen by the end of August. Members of your
Sub-Committee visited, with a view to ascertaining whether any special precautions
had been taken to arrest the spread of the disease; but the result of careful inquiry on
their part, disclosed the fact that the disinfection had been carried out on the lines
already described.