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The rise and fall of the disease is shown week by week on the
accompanying charts.
The increased number of cases reported in June was due chiefly to
infected milk, which affected the St. John, Victoria, and Knights bridge
St. George Wards; 43 cases were directly traceable to it, and 3 others
were probably due to the same cause. The illness was of a mild type
(1 child died), and there may have been other cases which escaped
detection on this account. There were 2 cases in each of 5 families
3 in 3 families; no secondary cases have been notified, even in houses
where the nature of the malady was not immediately recognised, but in
the majority of cases the patients were removed to hospital in the
earliest stage when there had not been much opportunity to infect
others.
In the whole of London there were 333 more notifications in June
than there were in that month last year. (Further particulars of this
outbreak are given below under the heading "Milk.")
A good deal of illness of a suspicious character was reported later in
the year from certain streets (Victoria Ward), and a number of children
attending St. Gabriel's School we.re examined, but the majority were
suffering from complaints not recognisable as scarlet fever, although
possibly some of them may have been so. In 7 cases there were
more than one person affected in the same house, accounting for
15 notifications. It is suspected that some of the cases may have been
due to a child who had still some infection in his nose and throat on
his return from hospital, while others were possibly due to mild
unrecognisable cases.
A number of children suspected to be suffering from scarlet fever in
Victoria Ward were examined in connection with a slight outbreak
which occurred on the re-assembling of the schools after the summer