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mother of the child first mentioned denies that she had ever been to this
shop, one of the assistants stated that he knew her as a customer and
was able to give her address. In one instance the back garden of
a house in which a patient lived adjoined that of the Gloucester Street
house, and possibly infection was contracted by contact with the child
who played in the small garden. How this child, who had not been out
of the neighbourhood, became infected has been somewhat difficult
to determine. She was taken ill about the 14th June, and as symptoms
do not appear until 12-14 days after infection, she must have been
infected in the end of May, or beginning of June. There had been
cases in Battersea and Wandsworth, and also a serious outbreak among
the men in Bowton House, Vauxhall, in the Borough of Lambeth, about
this time; two or three of these were employed in Westminster, but
their movements were traceable, and persons who had been associated
with them were kept under observation. The field was therefore
narrowed down to the existence in the neighbourhood of either an
unsuspected case or to the possibility that one of the Bowton House
men had been in the district. The former theory appeared improbable,
as with a resident undetected case other cases would have occurred
earlier in June, but to make sure, a house to house visit was made in the
infected streets and those adjoining, fortunately without discovering
such a case. Enquiries were then set on foot with respect to the movements
of one or two persons notified about the beginning of June
in other Boroughs, and eventually I applied to Dr. Ricketts at the
Hospital Ships, and he kindly interviewed a patient from Rowton House,
Lambeth, whom I suspected as a possible source of infection, his illness
having been notified on the 2nd June. Dr. Ricketts elicited the fact
that on two occasions, viz., on May 30th and on June 2nd, this man was
in Gloucester Street, Pimlico, close to the house where the first case
occurred, and as this unvaccinated child was playing about on the pavement,
there is little doubt that the infection was conveyed in this way.
Two persons were notified as doubtful small-pox, who after further
observations were decided to be suffering one from chicken pox and the
other from measles. One man was isolated at the Shelter for a week,
when he became ill and was removed to the Hospital. He had been
re-vaccinated some days after being infected with small-pox, with the
result that the disease was stopped at an early stage and he was able to
leave Hospital at the end of 14 days, the average residence of non-fatal
cases in the previous epidemic being 34½ days; none of these cases proved
fatal, but four of them were in hospital for about eleven weeks each.
A teacher at a school in Westminster, who had to pass through
affected streets, was notified to be suffering from small-pox in Wandsworth,
where her home is. One patient had been at Margate, and while