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8
The Medical man who attended the parents, and who
had taken great care to investigate their illness, subsequently
believed that their symptoms were not satisfactorily explained
by the disease stated in the death register, and read by the
light of the other cases, he had but little doubt but that they
suffered from the same disease as their children. Iu all,
therefore, in this family seven persons were attacked with
Enteric Fever.
On April 3rd, a boy who lived in another tenement, was
also attacked by Enteric Fever. This boy had had no communication
with the family above-mentioned, nor with their
rooms or water closet, but his water closet was iu connection
with the soil pipe belonging to the tenement the occupants
of which were suffering from Enteric Fever.
An investigation into the outbreak showed at once that no
suspicion could be cast on the water or milk supply to these
people, and a careful inquiry failed to show that the last case
had been anywhere exposed to infection outside the lodging
house. Eventually it was found that at the bottom of the
soil pipe in the basement was a deep dip trap which had led
to the accumulation of excrement for some time past.
There can be but little doubt that this was the cause of the
illness of all these people, and it is satisfactory to be able to
report that the dip traps in the whole of this lodging-house
have been abolished, and this disease has not been known
there since.
While other towns are making progress in the construction
and ventilation of their drains, the Metropolis is almost standing
still, and we shall have enteric fever among us so long as
house-drains are wrongly constructed and unventilated.
By the 76th section of the Metropolis Local Management
Act it is ordered that with regard to all new houses, every
draiu shall be made in such "manner, form, and of such
material and workmanship" as the Vestry shall order. This
is, therefore, a subject much under the control of the Vestry
and deserves their consideration.
MEASLES.
Measles caused directly 129 deaths in St. Pancras during
1879, while a larger number died from other causes some time
after an attack of this disease. According to the RegistrarGeneral's
calculations, measles caused in St. Pancras 1.2 in
every thousand deaths less than in the Metropolis as a whole.