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105
Pariah of Wandsworth.
The fifth case was notified on November 28th and.
was removed to hospital, and the sixth case on December
28th. On the 30th December I was informed by the
Medical Officer of the institution that 42 children
showed signs of desquamation, particularly on the feet,
and a few also on the hands. I visited the institution,
saw the children, and came to the conclusion that these
also had suffered from Scarlet Fever, having been infected
at the same time as the first four cases in November.
Since December 30th, 1898, other 09 cases have
been notified, all these with the exception of seven
being also cases infected about the 21st November. The
other seven cases are secondary and were infected
directly from some of the cases desquamating.
The distribution in dormitories was as follows:—
No. of
dormitory 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
No. of cases — 3 4 4 3 — 6 23 25 7 21 21=117
The age distribution given in the following table
shows that children under 12 suffered most, 103 out of
151 having been attacked, while over 12, only 14 cases
occurred out of 128:—
Ages 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Cases 9 13 20 28 19 14 3 4 6 1=117
Age distrib.
in School 10 13 26 36 29 37 41 41 33 15
I have made careful inquiry into the causation of
the outbreak, but have not been able to definitely say
what was the immediate cause, whether infected from
outside or by means of the milk supply. The first
source of infection, viz.:—from outside, is the least probable,
as no communication with visitors had taken place
since the 5th November, while the first symptoms of
the 1st case appeared on the 17th, the usual period of