View report page

15
11 From the year 1881 to the end of 1901 there have been employed in the Ambulance
Service of the Board 1,282 persons. Four of these persons contracted small-pox, of whom
one escaped vaccination when appointed; he died; one was unsuccessfully re-vaccinated on
joining the Service and the operation was not repeated; she died; the 2 others had been
re-vaccinated and recovered."
I do not think that it can be reasonably questioned that the foregoing paragraphs
from the report of the Statistical Committee who must have gone most carefully into
the facts and figures brought under their notice, constitute a most powerful argument
in favour of the protective influence of vaccination and re-vaccination in small-pox.
Since 1892 there has been a marked falling off in the numbers of children
vaccinated in Shoreditch. In my report for last year the percentage of children born
not finally accounted for with regard to vaccination are given for each year from 1872
to 1897. Shoreditch, at the present time, contains a large number of unvaccinated
children. Taking the figures for the years 1892 to 1897 inclusive, of some 25-743
children born during that period in Shoreditch, nearly 10,000 were not accounted for
with respect to vaccination during the first year of life, and in all probability the great
majority of them still remain unvaccinated.
SCARLET FEVER (SCARLATINA).
The cases of scarlet fever certified during 1901, numbered 557. Seven of the
cases were subsequently found not to be suffering from scarlatina at the hospitals of
the Metropolitan Asylums Board.

The increase in the number of cases certified as compared with the numbers foi
the previous three years which is observable in the above table, is the result of a sudden
outbreak due to infected milk, which occurred at the end of April and the beginning of
May. This outbreak has already been reported on in a special report. It will be
sufficient here to briefly refer to the main facts. The area of Shoreditch chiefly
affected was that lying along the eastern border of the Borough, adjoining Bethnal
Green, the contiguous portion of which Borough was also affected. The suddenness
of the outbreak may be judged of by a glance at the subjoined table containing the
numbers of eases certified each week from the beginning of the year :—