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Cancer.
The deaths from cancer registered in the registration county of London in 1894 numbered
3,441, the average for the preceding ten years being 3.128.9.

Anthrax.
The occurrence of a death in London from anthrax, to which the attention of the Council was
directed by the deputy coroner for Southwark, led the Public Health Committee to instruct me to
report on the causes of the disease and the means by which it could be prevented. The subject had in
1883 been reported on by Mr. John Spear on behalf of the Local Government Board and it obviously
became necessary that effort should be made to learn whether experience of the disease in London
since that year supplied further information than was available at the time Mr. Spear made his inquiry.
Dr. Hamer was therefore instructed to undertake this duty and in his investigation he received from
Dr. Perry, the Superintendent of Guy's Hospital, all the information which the records of Guy's
Hospital could supply. My thanks are due to Dr. Perry for valuable assistance thus rendered.
Dr. Hamer felt difficulty in determining whether apparent increase in the number of cases of
anthrax which became known was due to greater prevalence or to more general knowledge of the
appearances of the local lesion, but he noted the fact that but one case of internal anthrax
had been known to occur in London since 1883. Among the cases investigated by Mr. Spear were a
number of cases in which the infection was traceable to a particular consignment of China hides.
The cases which have occurred since Mr. Spear's inquiry do not generally appear to be traceable to
hides from that country. Dr. Hamer found reason for thinking that dry hides were much more
productive of disease than wet hides, and inasmuch as there was evidence of a tendency of the
trade to discourage the use of dry hides he was led to hope that the frequency of the occurrence
of cases of anthrax would be lessened. I presented to the Public Health Committee Dr. Hamer's
report on this subject, and the committee adopted the recommendation that persons engaged in
the skin trade should be invited to exhibit on their premises a notice giving advice to their
workpeople as to the precautions which should be taken for the avoidance of infection, as to the early
appearances of the disease, and as to the necessity of seeking medical advice in the event of any
suspicion that the disease has been contracted. The committee also directed that a copy of Dr. Hamer's
report should be sent to medical officers of health in London. Dr. Hamer's report is appended (see
Appendix III.).
The following notes of cases of anthrax which occurred in London in 1894 have been supplied
me by Dr. Hamer —
On January 19th a man who resided at Rawlings'-buildings, Melior-street, Bermondsey, and
who was a waterside labourer, noticed a pimple on his cheek. He had for some days preceding his
attack been engaged in "trucking" buffalo-hides from Penang and Australian sheep-skins from Gun
and Shot-wharf to a warehouse adjoining the same. On the 22nd the patient felt very ill and went to
Guy's Hospital; he was admitted and the pustule was excised. The man died. Anthrax bacilli were
found to be present.
During February two cases of anthrax affecting workers in horsehair were admitted to St. Bartholomew's
Hospital. In both instances the pustule was excised and the patient was discharged cured.
One of the patients resided in Lessada-street, and worked at Messrs. List and Son's factory,
51, Bunhill-row, where he was employed in washing horsehair. The other patient, G. N., of Nantstreet,
Cambridge-road, had been working in Hackney-road, where he was employed as a
"hackler," i.e., in pulling the horsehair through a comb to prepare it for the brushmaker. It transpired
that this man's sister had developed a swelling "like vaccination" on the right side of the neck a day
or two before G. N. became ill, and shortly after the latter date the father of these two patients had a
* See footnote (*), page 8.