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30
The last outbreak I shall refer to occurred quite recently (June
and July, 1877.)
This outbreak is perhaps, the most striking that has come under our
notice during the epidemic. Twenty-one persons lived in a house,
in Wheatstone Road, viz., three families in the parlour, first,
and second floors, respectively, besides a single man in the kitchen
who had bad small pox previously. The disease made its appearance in
the parlour floor of the house some time in June, the first case being
tbat of a girl aged ten. The parents of this child attempted to conceal
the nature ef the disease, even from the father's brother,
who lived on the first floor, and who has been the greatest sufferer from
the outbreak. No preventive measures were taken to check the spread
of the disease. On the 19th of June the suspicion entertained that the
child had small pox was communicated to us in an anonymous letter. The
house was visited the same day, and tho suspicion proved to be just.
In three rooms there lived the parents and two children. The sick girl
was in a room by herself, and the mother was nursing her. An absolute
refusal was returned to Inspector Langman's urgent and repeated
requests that the child might be sent to the hospital, it not being a case
in which the compulsory powers of removal could be enforced. Other
cases, to the number of ten, subsequently occurred, and these, with
one exception, which was very light and was concealed from us, were
sent to the Fulham Hospital. Of the 22 inmates of the house, 11
were attacked and four died, including one adult, the father of the
little girl who was first taken ill and who recovered. This child, it is
stated, was running about for days with the scabs of the disease on
her facc ; and it is said, moreover, that the blankets in which she lay,
covered with scabs, were hung over the yard wall, a mode of exposure
of an infected. thing which your Vestry's Law and Parliamentary Committee
have advised is not an offence within the meaning of the 38th
section of the Sanitary Act, 1866. At the rear of the house in which
these people lived, two other cases occurred in other two houses, the disease
apparently having been spread by the exposure of the beforementioned
blankets, which, by the way, first excited suspicion as to the
nature of the illness. Of these two cases one died. The most striking
fact, perhaps, in connection with this outbreak, is the condition of the
household as to vaccination. The man who died bad not been vaccinated;
nor had either of the dead children, two aged 5 years, one 4 years,
and one 9 months, two of these being the children of the deceased
man's brother. The boy, 7 years old, who was very dangerously ill, had
not been vaccinated. The girl first attacked, aged 10, had not been vaccinated.
The other six persons attacked, all of whom had been previously
vaccinated, had the disease very lightly indeed.
It may be asked how was it that these people, the children
especially, had not been vaccinated ? The answer is simple. Those
of the children that were born since the Compulsory Vaccination
Act came into operation, were, with two exceptions, not born in the
parish : and their cases had, therefore, never come under the notice
of the vaccination officer. Of the two excepted cases the vaccination
had in one of them been repeatedly postponed on account of
the child's ill-health— (he died) ; and in the other case
(also dead) the sorrowing mother confessed that she had
changed her residence from place to place repeatedly, to escape the