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22
Small-Pox.—At the commencement of the year the Distric*
was threatened by an outbreak of Small-pox. The disease first
appeared in an adult female and it was impossible to trace with
certainty the source of her infection, although I had some
suspicion of a quantity of bedding which she had quite recently
purchased of a pawnbroker in Islington. The patient was promptly
removed to the Highgate Small-pox Hospital; the premises
were thoroughly disinfected ; and those who had been exposed
and did not possess good vaccination marks were vaccinated, and
steps were taken to prevent them from exposing themselves for
at least a fortnight. By an unfortunate neglect of the quarantine
precautions which were imposed upon the responsible members
of the household, and despite their assurance to me that every
effort should be made to strictly regard them, an infant child of
the patient's was removed by a relative; the result was that
the infection was conveyed to two other houses and 9 people in
all contracted the disease before we succeeded, by dint of great
trouble and considerable expense, in stamping it out. Each of
the houses contained a patient under 7 years of age and the
authorities at the Highgate Small-pox Hospital refuse to admit
such cases. Being without the Metropolitan area we are not
permitted to avail ourselves of the Small-pox Hospitals of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board, and on applying to the only other
Small pox Hospital around London we were informed that they
could not take cases outside their district; we were reduced;
therefore, to the necessity of keeping them within their own
homes, for at the time there was not a suitable empty house in
a sufficiently isolated position which we might have procured and
used as a Hospital. There were 3 houses in which it became
necessary to isolate Small-pox cases, and all the inmates thereof
were absolutely imprisoned — the greatest possible degree of
isolation, and every possible precaution, being adopted in order
to protect the other inmates. These houses were watched on
occasion and food was left at the doors at the expense of the
Local Board.
Seeing that there were several other inmates in the 3
infected houses and that each house was in a row of others—mostly
let in lodgings—it was a source of great relief to find as each day