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27
B.—Communicable Diseases.
Details respecting the notifications of infectious disease received are
set out on the adjoining page.

Smallpox.—Considerable anxiety was occasioned by the occurrence
of cases in various parts of London, by the prevalence of the disease in
Derbyshire, Nottingham and adjoining counties and finally by a serious
outbreak in Poplar. In two cases firms in Westminster were sending
tailoring work to workshops in Stepney which were in contact with the
disease, and several persons living in infected houses were employed in
Westminster. The disease as manifested in the north was of a very
mild type and still continues, but in Poplar it was of a virulent character.
No cases occurred in Westminster, but on one occasion it was only by a
few days that we escaped. A woman, who was employed as a temporary
cook in a good class flat in Westminster, went down to Dartford with her
daughter to see her sister, who was said to be suffering from blood poisoning.
On her arrival, she was informed that the illness was smallpox, and that
there were two other cases in the house. It was not for some days that
we learned' of her visit, and when seen, she did not disclose the fact that
she had taken her daughter with her. Her employer, on being acquainted
with the matter, sent her back to Dartford, but on the way to the station
the woman instructed the taxidriver to take her to Fulham, where shortly
afterwards both she and her daughter developed the disease.
The spread of this fatal type of small-pox in London was checked by
recource to vaccination and re-vaccination, by the prompt method of
dealing with contacts, and by the system of inter-communication between
Medical Officers of Health, in which the officers of the County Council
co-operated, in particular by placing at the service of practitioners, experts
who were readv at any hour to visit suspected cases.
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