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16
Remarks on Infectious Diseases.
Small-Pox.—No death occurred from this disease during the
year, and only one case was reported, in St. Margaret's Parish,
which, however, was afterwards found to be a case of ChickenPox.
Notice was received from Sir John Monckton of a man
living at 149, Vauxhall Bridge Road, who had been engaged
at Middlesborough in erecting an iron hospital where SmallPox
was raging at the time. The man, however, continued
quite well and no further action was therefore necessary.
Scarlet Fever.—Six deaths occurred from this disease during
the year, compared with 14 deaths in 1897. Ninety-six cases
were notified. Two un-notified cases, however, came to my
notice by chance in April through the kindness of the Librarian
of the Public Library, and I found that the patients were still
borrowing books, although when I examined I found them to
be scaling freely, in fact, their stockings were full of scales.
One of the little girls was out in the street when I visited her
mother's house. Had these cases not become known the
patients might have become centres for the free dissemination
of Scarlet Fever right and left.
Sir R. Thorne, in his Annual report, says with regard to
Scarlatina "Return Cases":—
The streptococcus Scarlatina; or Conglomeratus, discovered by
Dr. Klein a dozen years ago alike in the blood of scarlatina
patients and in the udder-ulcers of cows the milk from which
had been disseminating Scarlatina, has, in more recent years
and on Continental authority, been found constantly present
in the throat secretions of persons in the acute stage of that
disease. This latter fact Drs. Klein and Mervyn Gordon
have in the course of their researches as to "Return Cases of
Scarlatina" fully confirmed. But though ever present in
the throats of patients suffering from this disease in its
earlier stages, this streptococcus could not be found by these
observers during convalescence from Scarlatina in the skin
shed by patients in their progress towards recovery; nor
could it be found by them in the urine of such persons, or in
the ear discharge from which some Scarlatina convalescents
suffer. But in the nasal discharge of persons all but well of
their Scarlatina this streptococcus was sometimes found,
and, most important of all, it was found to persist, and even
to recur, in abundance, in the throat secretions of certain
Scarlatina patients long after these persons had to all
appearance completely recovered from their illness.
In all probability it is persons who thus retain, or reproduce, in
their throats streptococcus Scarlatinae, at dates many weeks
subsequent to their attack, that are able on their return