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study to trace the spread of the infection in this way, as we have
been able to do, from street to street, from house to house, and from
person to person, but it is the opinion of the Law and Parliamentary
Committee of your Vestry that the 38th section of the Sanitary
Act, 1866, is not adequate to meet such exposure of infected
things. The section referred to provides that "any person, who
without previous disinfection exposes any bedding,
clothing, or other things which have
been exposed to infection from any dangerous infectious disorder
shall on conviction of such offence, before any justice, be liable to
a penalty not exceeding five pounds." If any person conveyed
through the street a coat or dress that had been for ever so short a
time exposed to infection in a sick room, he would be liable to the
penalty; but it would seem that a person may with impunity, wear,
in public places, a suit of clothes that had been for an entire night
exposed to infection in the same sick room! The danger is as
great in the one case as in the other.
Again, if any person " moves or exposes " in a public place any
infected bedding, &c., unless it is in course of transmission, under
proper precautions, to a disinfecting chamber, he is liable to the
penalty. But it would seem that he may with impunity expose
that same bedding in a back yard, over the dwarf walls of which
the winds impartially disseminate the poison it contains in every
direction.
The following case is deserving of notice as showing the farreaching
effects of neglect of sanitary precautions. Several cases
of small pox had occurred in a house, and the family laundress,
hearing of the illness from time to time, caused enquiry to be made
if it was an infectious character, and the reply was invariably " No."
Early in January a child died, and the enquiry being repeated the same
answer was given, the statement made being that the child had died from
diarrhoea—the secondary disease mentioned in the certificate of the cause
of death. The condition of one of the sheets sent to the wash on the day
following the child's death (it was covered with scabs, &c.) left no doubt
on the mind of the laundress of the nature of the illness ; and, pressing
her enquiries, she ascertained that the child had died from small pox.
There is reason to believe that for several weeks the infected clothing had
been sent with other things to the wash without any, or only very imperfect,
previous disinfection. The date of the offence, however, specially
referred to below was Monday, December the 18th. On the 19th December
the daughter and niece of the laundress sorted the clothes, and on Monday,
the 1st January—exactly thirteen days afterwards, the true period of incubation
of small pox—both were taken ill. About this time the nephew
of the laundress, a soldier on leave of absence, went to the house on a
visit. He left for Birmingham on the evening of the 15th January, very
ill, with all the symptoms of an attack of small pox, and he died on the
18th. The regimental surgeon who had charge of this case, not being
acquainted with the soldier's immediate history, did not recognise the
disease as small pox. The death was registered as " (Epidemic) Spinal
Meningitis." I received a letter from the Medical Officer of Health, however,
who wrote—" I should be inclined to conclude that the disease was
hemorrhagic small pox killing before the true eruption appeared. The