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65
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
inquiries could be made. Three notifications were received
on the 19th, and four on the 21st. With the exception of two
on the 21 st, all were supplied by the same purveyor in this
district, the two last, however, being supplied by another
milkman. Further inquiries showed that both these milkmen
derived their supply from the same source. Both premises in
this district were satisfactory, but at one of them there were
no means of sterilizing the utensils, and 1 instructed the
proprietor to send these utensils to the Disinfecting Station at
Tooting-, where they were thoroughly sterilized.
"In all the cases the first symptoms of the disease
appeared from the 15th to the 18th, but in one case which
occurred outside the district supplied by the purveyor, but
where the child had visited a house supplied by him and had
some milk on the 13th, the first symptoms were stated to have
occurred on the 18th, showing that the period of incubation
had been five days.
"The medical men in the neighbourhood were at once
communicated with and informed of the fact that a certain
milk supply was infected.
"I communicated with the London County Council to
ascertain if any other districts in London were infected, and
I was informed that the City of Westminster and the Borough
of Chelsea had reported a number of cases in which the same
milk supply was involved. I also ascertained that a number
of places in the County of Surrey, whose milk supply was
from the same source, were infected, and that in the Borough
of Kingston alone over 170 cases had been notified. The
Medical Officer of Health of the London County Council informed
me that they would at once institute inquiries in the
localities from which the milk was sent. These inquiries
showed that at the farm some cases of Scarlet Fever had
occurred, and that the authorities who were dealing with the
outbreak were of opinion that these cases were the cause of
the outbreaks which had occurred.
"As the infected supply has now been stopped I am of
opinion that so far as this Borough is concerned the outbreak
is at an end.