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7
small-pox.
In the Report for the preceding quarter it is said that two
cases of small-pox occurred in the Hanover and Mayfair subdistricts
in December 1862, and 18 during the first quarter
of 1863, of which 18 twelve were parish patients.
Between the 29th March and 27th June, the total number
of cases reported to have occurred is 45. 32 of these
were received into the wards in Mount-street, and 2 were
treated at home by the parochial medical officers. The remaining
11 were persons who employed their own private
medical attendant, and we have only hearsay evidence respecting
most of them.*
There may have been more cases, for it was curious to
notice the efforts made, and often successfully made, to keep
the disease a secret. For instance, one of the deaths registered,
from confluent small-pox, occurred on premises, the proprietor
of which, though living on the spot, said he knew nothing
about it till two months afterwards.
And a tradesman's wife in Union-street, Bond-street, says,
she never knew that there were four persons in her house ill
with small-pox, till she was taken ill with it herself, and made
a fifth.
Out of these 45 cases, 10 were children under 15, of whom
it was ascertained that 7 were vaccinated.
Out of the 35 adults received into Mount-street, 7 were
strangers. For example—
* In making this enumeration, a man who was admitted twice
to the Mount-street wards is only counted once. A woman admitted
with measles is not reckoned at all, and a man who had
been sent to the Small-pox Hospital during the previous quarter,
and was admitted into Mount-street this quarter, is not reckoned
as a fresh patient.