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Typhus.
The deaths from typhus in the Administrative County of London during the year 1898
numbered three.

The death-rate in each year since 1868 in relation to the mean death-rate of the period
1869-98 is shown in diagram XV.
The number of persons certified to be suffering from typhus during the year was 16, and
9 persons suffering from this disease were admitted into the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums
Board, eight from the Kensington and one from the St. Saviour Union.
The actual number of cases of typhus known to have occurred in the parish of Kensington
was 18. Of these a group of 15, associated with each other, occurred in the early part of the
year, and a group of three, also associated with each other, in October. These outbreaks forcibly
illustrate the readiness with which typhus may escape recognition at the present time. The
circumstances of these outbreaks are clearly stated in Dr. Dudfield's annual and monthly reports.
In March a medical man and an undertaker were admitted to the Western Hospital on certificates
stating that they were suffering from enteric fever. Shortly after admission their disease was
recognized to be typhus, and the information conveyed to Dr. Dudfield who found both had been
in contact with a family occupying a tenement in Western-dwellings. This family consisted of
a father, mother, and seven sons and daughters, one of whom was in service. The father was
attacked at Christmas with what was believed to be influenza, and between that time and the 14th
March all but one suffered in a similar manner, and the true nature of the disease appears to
have escaped detection. The removal to the Western Hospital of a medical man who attended
them, and of an undertaker who was employed to bury the mother, who died, led at length to the
disease being recognised as typhus. Later, the remaining member of the family who was in
service, but who attended her mother's funeral and visited a brother and sister who had been
removed to the infirmary, also was attacked. This girl was seen by Dr. Dudfield and certified to be
suffering from typhus. Later, a man, woman, and child who lived in the same dwellings as
the family in question, and in rooms in close proximity to those they occupied, were also attacked,
and lastly, a woman in St. George-the-Martyr parish, who had assisted in the care of the members
of the first family, also suffered from the disease. Of the 15 persons thus attacked the mother of
the first familv. a son aged 20, and the medical man died.
1 See footnote ('), page 3.