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39
Parish of Clapham.
mostly by the artizan and labouring class, but differs not
at all in that respect from other parts of the parish that
were comparatively free at the time. It is easy to see,
however, how in a neighbourhood of this character where
many of the children play together in the streets, infection
may be spread with facility by personal contact. The long
summer drought had caused the sewers to be less well
flashed than usual, and there are several "dead end"
sewers in the area referred to; those in Courland Grove,
for instance, where there were 9 cases, and in Union
Grove where there were 6, are so arranged. Special
attention was therefore given to the thorough flushing of
these sewers, and, where possible, additional ventilating
shafts were carried up houses to supplement the surface
gratings in the roadways, and some of the latter were
done away with.
Besides these cases, others not in well defined groups
were widely distributed throughout the sub-district, and
in no instance was there any evidence that a milk supply
was instrumental in spreading the disease.
The ages of those notified were as follows:—
Under 1 year. From 1 to 5 5 to 10 10 to 15 15 to 25 25 and upwards.
1 65 67 21 16 16
So that 70.9 per cent, of the total cases were between
the ages of one and ten years.
The point of prime importance in dealing with Diphtheria,
and in which there appears to have been some
failure, is the early diagnosis of cases, and to that end the
bacteriological method now coming into more general use
should be most useful. In addition, probably there
have been cases, as pointed out above, which have not been
recognised at all, a difficulty which could only be dealt with
by the more or less systematic examination of the throats
of children attending elementary schools.