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Smallpox.
CASE No. 1.
On the evening of Saturday, 2nd February, I was asked to see,
in consultation with a local practitioner, a case of suspected Smallpox.
The patient was an air hostess travelling regularly between
London, Gibraltar and Malta. She had returned from the latter
place on the previous day. Enquiry also ascertained that she had
been there thirteen days before, that being the approximate incubation
period of the disease. A history showed that she had been
feeling off colour for a few days, and that spots commenced to appear
on the body and face on Friday, 1st February, and that these had
become profuse on the following day. The distribution and the
nature of the rash, however, did not suggest Smallpox and there
was a history of successful vaccination in November, 1951. The
final diagnosis was that of Chickenpox.
CASES 2, 3, 4, and 5.
In addition to the above-mentioned case, I was called in during
the year to see four other cases in which a suspicious rash occurred.
Two of the cases were women aged 40 and 45 years and the
others two children 10½ years and 4½ years old. There was a history
of vaccination in the case of the two women and the child aged 10½
years, but the remaining child had not been vaccinated.
The final diagnosis in each case was one of Chickenpox.
R.M.S. "STRATHNAVER."
Four persons on board R.M.S. "Strathnaver," which docked
at Tilbury on 30th November, were reported by the Ship's Surgeon
to have, or to have had, Chickenpox during the voyage from Sydney.
One of the cases, a male Asiatic steward, showed a distribution
which, although the case was clinically undoubtedly Chickenpox, was
somewhat wider than might be expected in such a mild case.
Consequently the Ship's Surgeon dispatched by air from
Marseilles a sample of scabs and vesicular material for laboratory
examination. As a result of the laboratory report it was decided to
treat the case administratively as suspected Smallpox.
Owing to the dispersal of the passengers and crew, eight contacts
proceeded to the Borough of Hendon.
The necessary arrangements were made for the surveillence of
the contacts but, before they could be put into operation, information
was received that, as a result of a second laboratory report, the case
was not one of smallpox.
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