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5
3 cases were contracted in common lodging houses; in
two cases it appeared probable that the infection was
communicated by third persons who did not themselves
contract the disease; and in one case the
person affected took in tailoring work from Stepney
where the infection was very prevalent.
In the majority of cases the source of infection could not be
found, but it is probable that the disease was spread to a large
extent by very mild cases undetected and unsuspected, who
were going about their ordinary duties, several of whom were
doubtless Arsenal employees.
The following cases which were detected after the occurrence
of secondary cases are doubtless examples of many others
which were never suspected:—
(а) A woman being found to have confluent small-pox and
not to have been exposed to any likely source of
infection away from home, her husband was
examined and found to have about half-a-dozen
recently healed spots and to have suffered from
"influenza" two weeks previously; the spots
appeared after three days of fever. He had been
at work all the time with the exception of three or
four days.
(b) A man being found in the Arsenal to be suffering from
small-pox, his wife was sent for and on her appearing
she was seen to have recent scars of small-pox spots;
she had been unwell for two or three days about two
weeks before but had had no doctor. Besides
infecting her husband she was the source of infection
of two lodgers in the same house.