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Fever Hospital, where one died. Two died at No. 5, and
one at No. 3.
Of the things possible to check such an epidemic, the
first is to remove the sick; the second, to cleanse and disinfect
everything contaminated by infectious matter. The
first was done to as great an extent as the people would consent
to. Of the second class, we did obtain, and that as a
permanent boon, the supply of water on Sundays,—the very
morning when working-men are at home, and there is most
use of water, and the consequences of unflushed sinks and
closets most perilous. Disinfectants, as the chloride of lime,
were used in some measure. Nevertheless, the means available
for hindering the spread of infection from tenement to
tenement were clearly worthless; and as for those for limiting
infection when once within a set of rooms, they are
also equally worthless. To go to people of this class
and exhort them to exert themselves against the spread
of contagion, is preaching to stone walls. They cannot
see the meaning of the measures advised. When the
disease once gets into a poor man's room, the case is
hopeless. We tell them to move out whilst their room is
cleansed, and the carpets, curtains, &c., disinfected. But
the reply is, that this is impossible; that there is no other
place to go to. They object to remove the sick person on the
score of affection. They next affirm that it is dangerous
and cruel to remove the sick ; and end by getting, perhaps, a
certificate from some medical man out of the parish, which
shall delay the cleansing ordered by the local authority.
This is no exaggerated account of the difficulties in the
way of suppressing scarlet fever at the outset.
The 74 cases of diarrhoea were distributed amongst all
ages, in all parts of the sub-district; two only can be identified
with the deaths,—that of a woman of 85 in Swan'spassage,
and a child in Little Bruton-street, who died in