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that the disease is not contagious, I hold that the practice
is wrong, as I have known the disease communicated to
medical men, in one instance fatally; I have known a
patient contract the disease in its worst form, and die of it,
after having been in the wards of a hospital for two months
for another complaint, a patient with typhoid having been
brought in meanwhile; and lastly, nurses sometimes contract
the disease, and occasionally, as in this instance, fatally.
The four deaths registered as from typhus fever are thus
accounted for:—One was imported from Liverpool, one was
that of a vagrant who died at the Union Infirmary, Fulham
Road, one was really from malignant scarlet fever and not
from typhus at all, and the fourth was a death from true
yellow fever, registered as "contracted on board mail,
steamer from Rio Janeiro."
Diarrhoea caused 54 deaths, or more than in either
1876 or 1877, but less than the average for ten years
which is 63 per annum.
Small-pox.—The Registrar-General gives 5 as the
number of deaths from this disease occurring in the Parish
during the year, and so I have put 5 in the table, but
there were really only 4, one having been erroneously
registered as small-pox in February, as I pointed out in
my Report for that month.
Of these 4 fatal cases, 2 occurred in May, one being that
of a child prematurely born, the mother being at the time
ill with small-pox, and the other 2 in June, "one that of
an unvaccinated child, 3 years of age, and the other that
of a man, 32 years old, who had not been re vaccinated."
Small-pox in London.
The epidemic of this disease, which began in 1876, has
continued through 1877 and 1878.