London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Kensington 1884

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]

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68
of whom 16 had resided within the special area, and 5 others
between one and one and a half mile from the hospital. Of the
16 cases within the special area, 1 resided in the quarter-mile
central circle, and 6, 6, and 3 in the three outer quarter-mile
rings. The significance of the figures will be realised when it is
remembered that out of 32 cases in the special area infected,
January 12th—17th, 1881, only 12 belonged to Kensington, and
that the admission of some 70 acute and 120 convalescent cases
into the hospital previously had not, apparently, done any mischief
in the district, whilst in June, 1884, no fewer than 16 cases in the
Kensington part of the special area got infected in four days,
although, on the last of the four infection days, only 5 cases in all
had been admitted into the hospital, which stands on a site six
acres in extent, and at a minimum distance of 300 yards from the
nearest houses in Kensington. Time and space do not permit of
further reference to this outburst, which appears to me to
neutralise the inferences Mr. Power has drawn from the earlier
outburst, for it can be shewn that the cases in June, 1884, are no
more explicable than those which occurred in the special area in
January, 1881, or than those in an equally "notable outburst" at
the culmination of the epidemic in April, 1878, to which I referred
in my evidence before the Royal Commission. I submit, however,
that there is no reasonable ground for attributing the occurrence
of the outburst in June, 1884, to any hospital influence: the
epidemic wave appears to have spread from north to south, from
east to west, as far as Kensington, and, subsequently to Chelsea
and Fulham, where at a later date cases became relatively more
numerous. Nothing like the June outburst occurred subsequently
in 1884, and one can only say that if that outburst
was due to aerial dissemination, as understood by Mr. Power, then
small-pox might always be expected to spread in the vicinity of
infected houses. It is worthy of passing notice that at a later
period five persons in one family were stricken simultaneously
and treated at home in a house situated at the corner
of. two streets in the Potteries district, Notting Dale; and that
from another house, in a poor street at Notting Hill, seven persons