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15
a young woman, age 24 years, who had been nursing the other
cases, and who died early in 1896.
Only one other instance of a secondary infection in an
infected house came to my knowledge during the year.
Four of the cases were removed to a hospital through
private charity, but the want of hospital accommodation at the
disposal of the Sanitary Authority was in several instances much
felt.
I am of opinion that the prevalence of the disease in
October and November was in some way connected with the
simultaneous prevalence of influenza. Serious sanitary defects
were found in some instances, but I was not able to trace any
considerable number of cases to a common cause.
Diphtheria.
Thirty-one cases were notified during the year, with 12
deaths. A group of 7 cases, 5 of which were in one family, and
2 of which proved fatal, occurred in evident association with the
prevalence of scarlet fever, and 3 other cases occurred some two
months later in another family in a different part of the district
a fortnight after the children had returned from a fever hospital.
One case, that of an adult woman, was sent home from a
house in an adjoining district, in a public conveyance, by her
employer, with, as appeared to me, the deliberate connivance of
a medical practitioner. The facts were reported to the Council
concerned, the vehicle was duly traced by their officers and disinfected,
but no satisfactory evidence of guilty knowledge could
be obtained sufficient in the opinion of Council to justify shal
prosecution. The district from whence this case came being
provided with proper hospital accommodation for their infectious
cases, they consented to receive her. This was the only diphtheria
case for which hospital provision could be made. This
district, so far as diphtheria is concerned, being absolutely
without any suitable place for the care and isolation of diphtheria
cases, so that wherever there they have to recover or
die, however unsuitable or dangerous may be the surroundings.
One case occurred in the Edmonton Union Infirmary, to
which it was inadvertently admitted from premises without this
district,