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9
large per centage of the cases, whereas in the south they have
comprised a somewhat small per centage of the sufferers, and as in
the former epidemic, the cases in the north have been grouped
more than in the south, where, as a rule, they have occurred singly.
But even in the north the single cases have been more numerous
during the last twelve months than in the previous year or
in the last epidemic. This has been due in part, I believe,
to the more early removal of first cases. The age of the children
attacked in the south part of the parish has been on an average
higher than in the north. In explanation of these differences, it
may be stated that children are far more numerous in the north,
and overcrowding is more common.
In my last report I gave many illustrative cases of unsuspected
channels of communication of the disease. I suspect
none is more frequent than premature exposure of convalescent
patients who have been treated at home. I well remember in the
epidemic of 1871-2, having seen children playing in the streets
and doing little errands, with the dying-out rash plainly visible.
But no such cases have come to my knowledge during the present
epidemic, and I believe more care is now taken to keep the disease
from spreading, the public generally having been roused to a
sense of the danger. It has happened in many cases that this
sense of danger has been the cause of information reaching us of
the existence of the disease, viz., through the medium of letters—
anonymous or otherwise—and by confidential verbal communications.
There appears good reason to suppose that the disease is spread
sometimes through the medium of laundries, either by infection
contained in clothing sent to be washed, or by infection distributed
with washed clothes, when the disease has existed in the family
of the laundress or her employes.
A striking illustration of the danger of sending infected clothing
to a laundry was given in my last Annual Report; and though
I am not able to prove that the disease has actually been spread
from a laundry by the business being carried on during the prevalence
of sickness in the family of the laundress, we have done all
that we could to put a check on the evil practice, and in a case that
occurred during the present year where a boy, the son of a
laundress, was ill, and the parents would not let him go to the
hospital, but persisted in sending home the washed linen without
previous disinfection, proceedings under the 38th section of the
Sanitary Act, 1866, were taken at the Police-court before Mr.
Bridge, who, as it was a first case, inflicted a mitigated penalty,
but at the same time announced his intention to impose the full
penalty (£5) in any proved case that should hereafter be brought
before him. It is not known that any case of the sort had been
previously tried, but I have no doubt of the importance of the