View report page

39
tribution of the disease, in the constituent parishes, Chelsea,
Kensington, and Fulham, including Hammersmith. Mr.
Power, thereupon, appealed to the Medical profession for
precise information of all small-pox, in the districts above
mentioned, since the commencement of the present year,
(1884), such information to include the facts as to each case,
mild or severe. Mr. Power's further report will be awaited
with interest, none the less because he will have had the
opportunity of testing the validity of his own conclusions
with full knowledge of the objections raised thereto by those
who have felt themselves unable to accept, as proved, the
theory of distant aerial infection.
The new inquiry, however, will be conducted under
circumstances differing considerably from those of 1881,
inasmuch as not more than fifty cases may now be treated
in the Hospital at any one time, whereas in 1881 as many
as 300 beds were continuously occupied for weeks together.
The great bulk of the 300 patients, it is true, were in
the stage of convalescence which is not regarded by Mr.
Power as being infective in any thing like the same degree
as the acute stage, if at all: still, there were as many as 80
acute cases in the wards at one time and over a considerable
period. It is noteworthy, however, that when these acute
cases were at a maximum there was no marked prevalence
of small-pox in the "special area," (a circle of a mile radius
having the Hospital for its centre), it being the fact, moreever,
that when the "notable outbreak" of January, 1881,
took place, there were not more than fifteen acute cases
in Hospital, only 55 of such cases in all having been admitted
in a period of five weeks, ending Jan 17th, which was the
last of the five days on which the persons were infected,
whose illnesses, commencing Jan. 26-30, (inclusive), made so
strong an impression on the mind of Mr. Power. It was this
smallness of numbers at the critical time, that led me to
submit to the Royal Commission the view that, if the aerial
infection theory as developed by Mr. Power were true, "a