London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

Marylebone 1895

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Marylebone, The Parish of ]

This page requires JavaScript

SMALLPOX, 1895.
11

Continued from previous page...

Dareuth Asylum1
Hoxton House Asylum4
Camberwell House Asylum2
Peckham House Asylum1
Aged Pilgrims Asylum1
Central London Sick Asylum1
St. Pplagia'a Creche1
Royal Hospital for Incurables1
Royal Chest Hospital1
Italian Hospital ...1
Steamship " Iona"1
The " Priory," Putney1
H. M. Prison, Wormwood Scrubbs ...1
Salvation Army Shelter, Hackney1
Hampstead Home Hospital1
Dock Cottages, Poplar1
Otherwise8
792

SMALLPOX, 1895.
Smallpox had been dormant for several years, until
1893; thus, taking the five years from 1890 to the end
of 1894: in the first of the five years only three cases
were notified; in 1891, only a single case occurred; in 1892,
but seven cases; in 1893, a local outbreak brought the
number up to 170. This outbreak was entirely owing to a
case of great severity having been kept and nursed at home,
added to which, the scene of the occurrence was in a
community in which there had been but little vaccination.
In the past year, 1895, a similar but smaller outbreak
occurred, the total number of cases being 103.
The circumstances connected with this outbreak are
detailed at page 4 of the writer's Report, for the month
of January, 1895, the cause being that a poor woman
in a tenement house suffered from some feverish disorder,
which ran so unusual a course as to baffle the skill of a
medical man of experience to give it a name. It looked,
indeed, like a hybrid of measles and scarlet fever. It
was not until the ninth day, when much mischief had
been done, that the eruption was sufficiently distinctive for
the case to be notified as "smallpox." A few hours after
the diagnosis the patient died. The case was only