View report page

27
man had great pain in the head and back, vomiting, and a purpuric eruption.''
He also said, " the woman who washed his clothes took small pox
and died on the 8th February, and expressed her belief that she took the
disease from the clothes " That she did, I fear there can be no doubt,
and the case is mentioned as another illustration of the danger of washing
infected garments, &c., until after they have been efficiently purified by
the combined agency of heat and chemical disinfectants. By direction of
your Vestry proceedings were taken at the Hammersmith Police Court
against the person who had sent the infected clothes to the laundry, and
he was fined two pounds and costs.
Danger has frequently arisen from the non-detection of the disease.
This may be from the mildness of the attack, for then the disease
is sometimes supposed to be chicken-pox, or if it is suspected to be
small-pox, the case is thought of too little importance to be sent
away. The following instances may be cited by way of
illustration:—
A child being taken ill, an " unregistered " practitioner was called in,
who failed to recognise the disease as small-pox. A fortnight after two
other cases occurred in the same family, clearly due to infection from the
first case. A sick adult relative living in the same house visited
one of the popular dispensaries, where advice and medicine are
supplied for a very small fee. Two days after he died, somewhat
suddenly and unexpectedly. The cause of death returned was " syncope,"
or fainting. There is no reason to doubt that he died of small-pox, and
within a fortnight two other members of the family were stricken, and
removed to the hospital. There were three deaths of unvaccinated
children in this family.
Again, there is infection in the dead body as the following cases
show:—
Two undertaker's men were engaged to remove a body from one of the
hospitals. They had to place it in the shell. At the expiration of a fortnightthey
were both in the hospital, suffering from small-pox themselves,
and one of them (unvaccinated) died.
This case shows the danger of contact, even with the dead, and
illustrates the necessity of immediate coffining, disinfection, and
speedy burial. The following cases are not without interest:—
A man applied for relief at a dispensary one day early in the Christmas
holidays. The officers were absent, and ho was directed to call again
next day. The eruption of small-pox was then fully out on him ! Ho had
been drinking with his friends, and going from one public-house bar to
another in the interval between his visits to the dispensary. Steps
were being taken to remove him in the parish ambulance to a hospital,
when it was discovered that he belonged to another parish, and he was
forthwith sent away, and directed to go straight home !
A poor female tramp had a sick baby. She took the child to a dispensary,
and spent a long time in the common waiting room with a
number of other people. The child was found to be suffering from smallpox,
and an order for the ambulance to take mother and child to the
hospital was given. The woman had no home, and no place to wait in ;
to with the child in her arms she went through the streets to the residence
of the ambulance driver, where her presence excited no small alarm.
She was sent back to the dispensary, whence, some hours afterwards,
she and the child were conveyed to tho hospital.