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18
Day, 1902, was £77,006, £1,254 of which is apportioned to
the Borough of Woolwich. But this does not include Head
Office charges nor expenditure on capital account, and, of
course, the chief part of the expenditure on the new Smallpox
Hospitals will come into the current year's accounts
which will, no doubt, reach a somewhat alarming figure.
The cost to the Woolwich Union of vaccination in the 12
months ending Lady Day was £1,385 3s. 7d. To get the cost
for the Borough the charge for Charlton and Kidbrook has to
be deducted, and that for Eltham added; I have not the
figures for these parishes, but it is certain that the cost for
Eltham is considerably less than that for Charlton.
Altogether it is obvious that in vaccination we have an
effectual and comparatively cheap means of preventing Smallpox,
whereas Hospital isolation affords an expensive and very
ineffective means of dealing with this disease. In fact, I am
quite of the opinion of the British Medical Journal, that an
effective system of re-vaccination of children before leaving
school would render Small-pox as exceptional as it now is in
Germany, and would make the maintenance of expensive
Hospitals and Ambulance service quite unnecessary; and in
this way a great economy would be effected for London ratepayers.
16. Houses affected.—Prom the list of cases appended to
this report, it will be seen that the houses affected were
distributed all over the Borough, though Plum stead parish was
affected far the most in proportion to population.
The 245 cases were contained in 209 houses.
Of these, 178 were in good sanitary condition and 31 had
some sanitary defect. In 20 houses there were dirty interiors,
in one overcrowding, and in the remaining nine defective water
closets or some structural defect.