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32
In the four weeks ended May 17tlx there were five cases recorded
in Kensington, four of them in North Kensington. Small-pox
was at this time, and for some weeks previously had heen,
on the increase in London. On May 17th there were 735 patients
in the hospitals of the Asylums Board, the number having steadily
increased in the previous eight weeks from 148. At this time the
Western (Fulham) hospital was re-opened for the reception of
small-pox patients. In my monthly report of the same date, in
calling attention to the rapidly extending epidemic, I wrote as
follows:—
"The main brunt of the epidemic, so far, lias been 011 the parishes 111 the northern
and eastern districts, a simultaneous outbreak having commenced at Hackney.
Islington, Bethnal Green, and Shoreditch, in March. My colleague, the Medical Officer
of Health for Hackney, has published his opinion that the outbreak, so far as that
parish is concerned, was in some way connected with the Eastern Hospital
(at Homerton), and yet the cases of small-pox in that hospital, at the time, barely
exceeded a score, while the cases had been more numerous at a previous time, in
the current year, without any ill results upon the district, lief erring to previous
epidemics, the same authority has stated that there had been no ground for
suspecting aerial dissemination of small-pox at 200 yards distance, however overcrowded
the hospital may have been, (and it has received as many as 150 patients
at one time), although there was ground for suspicion that infection had spread to
a distance of 110 yards, when more than fifty patients had been in the hospital. In
March, as already stated, the number of patients scarcely exceeded 20, and yet the
hospital is supposed to have been connected in some occult way with the spread of
infection, more particularly within a quarter of a mile, although the cases were
spread over a very much larger area in Hackney and adjoining parishes. I allude
to this opinion here, and now, because the Western (Fulham) Small-Pox Hospital
has been re-opened, and because, if the Eastern Hospital has spread small-pox by
aerial dissemination in Hackney, the Western Hospital may, in like manner,
spread the disease in Kensington."
In the remainder of the month of May, 18th to 31st, the
Western Hospital received 11 Borough of Chelsea patients, and
very few besides: 12 new cases were recorded in Kensington, 8 of
them in North Kensington—including 1 concealed case in Bransford
Street, which gave rise to 9 other cases in the same house—
and 4 in South Kensington. In the following fortnight ending
June 14th (at which date there were 1,238 cases in the Asylum
Board's Hospitals, the new cases recorded were 41,—15 in North
Kensington and 26 in South Kensington.