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Croydon General Hospital, to which institution she had been
admitted as suffering from septicaemia. A young girl in
Mitcham also contracted enteric fever in February : her home
had several sanitary defects, and more than one case of
diarrhceal illness occurred there.
In March two cases of a very doubtful character
occurred, one in an adult woman at Beddington Corner, who
had suffered from the same disease in 1893, and who died
rather suddenly after an illness of 10 days' duration. The
first diagnosis was influenza. The other and still more
doubtful case occurred at Kenley in a young girl, who was
taken ill suddenly on March 1st, speedily became semiconscious,
and, after severe epileptiform convulsions on the
4th, died on the same day in a state of coma with CheyneStokes
respiration. In neither of these cases was I successful
in obtaining a post-mortem examination.
In May a case at Mitcham and a case at Wallington
occurred, neither of which could be definitely accounted for.
In June a lad living at Collierswood was attacked, and it
seemed possible that a habit of playing in a polluted roadside
stream (Graveney Brook) may have caused the illness ; while
in July a solitary case occurred in Merton which could not
be accounted for.
During September 4 cases were reported, 2 of which were
in Mitcham, 1 at Beddington Corner, and 1 in South
Beddington. Three of these cases were contracted while the
patients were away from home for the summer holiday, and
the other probably arose from the patient drinking water from
the river Wandle at Beddington Corner, where it is mixed
with the effluent of the Croydon sewage farm. The last case
reported occurred in December, the patient being a lady living
in Wallington, and it is supposed that oysters were the exciting
cause.