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typhoid. They were all admitted to the Plaistow Isolation
Hospital, including the lad first attacked, who, though he appeared
well, was suspected to be a "carrier." The Widal reaction in each
case was strongly positive, and the typhoid bacillus was isolated
from the stools of the patients. The stools and urine of the
suspected "carrier," however, proved negaltive to the typhoid
bacillus on three occasions, and he was discharged from hospital.
The mother of the family contracted the disease ten
days after his discharge, and was admitted to hospital. It is
some months now since all the cases were discharged from
hospital well, and no further case has developed. The father was
a dealer in rabbits for food, which he skinned and sold from a
stall within the Borough. Although he had a negative Widal
reaction, and his stools and urine were proved negative to the
typhoid bacillus, he was suspended from his employment, and
the provisions of the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations,
1927, were anticipated by a few weeks, and the man compensated.
In spite of negative bacteriological results, the weight
of the evidence still seems to point to the first sufferer in the family
as being. a carrier, probably of the intermittent type. Incidentally,
this episode reveals the potent menace as regards the liability of
an outbreak of infectious disease from the presence on undrained
plots of land in a crowded area, of itinerant caravans and their
dwellers.