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Outbreaks of disease are referred to in the reports of the medical officers of health of the
following districts—
Kensington.—The medical officer of health gives account of two instances in which diphtheria
occurred in a child, and the disease not having been recognised, spread to other persons. In the first
of these outbreaks the child first attacked had been accustomed to dabble in the water which lay in a
hollow near to the ventilating opening of a sewer from which nuisance was experienced.
Stoke Newinaton.—The medical officer of health writes that of 71 cases of diphtheria occurring
in 65 different houses 12 were probably due to insanitary conditions. School attendance was alleged
by parents or surmised by himself on sufficient grounds to be the cause of 9 cases and to be responsible
for 12.7 per cent. Apart from school, 7 cases contracted the disease in all probability from a previous
case ; three cases were imported into the parish, and in 38 cases the origin of the disease could not be
traced in a satisfactory manner.
St. George Southwark.—The medical officer of health reports that 14 cases, of which five died,
occurred between the 14th July and the 8th October, all but two of the sufferers were under ten years
of age. The circumstances of these cases were investigated; they occurred in two groups, and the
prevailing cause was found to be the abundant opportunity that existed in the locality for communication
of the disease from one person to another. There was an interval between the first and second groups
but the first case of the second group was a young man who lodged in the same house occupied by a case
1 See footnote (1) page 7.