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66
Proposed Legislation with regard to Infectious Diseases
attributable to MlLK.
Another very important question was raised by the County Council with
reference to the above.
The Reports of the Public Health Committee, dated 9th May, 1901, and
11th June, 1901, are as follows:—
Report of the Public Health Committee.
9th May, 1901.
1.—We have received from the medical officer an interim report
concerning an outbreak of scarlet fever, mainly in the East of London,
occurring in the last few days of April and early part of May. On
Wednesday, 1st May, the medical officer was informed by Dr. Bryett,
medical officer of health of Shoreditch, that a number of cases of scarlet
fever had been notified to him on the preceding day, and that most of
the persons attacked had obtained their milk from two local vendors, one
in Shoreditch, the other in Bethnal Green. He had also heard from
Dr. Bate, medical officer of health of Bethnal Green, that cases of scarlet
fever associated with a particular milk supply had been notified in that
borough, and that in both districts the milk was obtained from a
contractor who received it from various farms in the country. While
inquiries as to the source of the supply of milk distributed to persons
who were attacked were being made by the medical officers of health of
the districts concerned, the circumstances of this contractor's business
were investigated by the Council's medical officers, and these circumstances
pointed to the conclusion that the milk which was operative
came from one of a very limited number of farms among the forty or
more on the list supplied by the contractor to the medical officer.
The medical officer had already communicated with the medical officers
of health of districts in which a number of the farms were situated, and
on Saturday morning, the 4th instant, he received a letter stating that
in one of the farms, to the milk of which suspicion especially attached,
cases of throat illness suggestive of scarlet fever had occurred. The
medical officer, in view of the information which had been obtained,
wrote to the contractor that the milk from this farm ought not to be
supplied, and he at once acted on this advice. Dr. Hamer, who had
left in the early morning for Staffordshire, to make enquiry at certain
farms, was able later in the day to satisfy himself that the disease on the
particular farm above referred to was in all probability scarlet fever, a
conclusion subsequently confirmed by the desquamation of one of the
patients.