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11
December 30th, the number of deaths has been as follows: For the week
ending on Saturday, the 7 th January, the deaths from small-pox in the
Whitechapel District, were 3, and in the entire Metropolis 79. In the
following week, the deaths in this District, and in the Metropolis, were
respectively 6 and 135, in the week ending 21st January, they were respectively
8 and 188, in the week following they were 5 and 153, and in the
week ending 4th February the deaths from small-pox were respectively 8
and 196. The cases returned by the Medical Officers of the Union for the
same weeks, were 20, 33, 19, 30, and 32.
The locality principally affected in this District, for the present Quarter,
has been that which has been entrusted to the care of Dr. Swyer, and embraces
the Northern and Western parts of Spitalfields Parish. The number
of cases of small pox returned by Dr. wyer, for this Quarter, is 123, while
in the four other Medical Districts, the number is 122, or only the half
of the total cases.
During the first two Quarters of the present year, not a single death
was recorded in this District from small pox, and only 24 cases of the disease
were recorded by the Medical Officers.
As this disease is apt to recur periodically, it is clearly the duty of the
several local authorities, at all times, to be prepared to meet the emergency.
For this purpose, it will be necessary for the Guardians to have always
ready for immediate use, an appropriate building, for the reception of
cases of small pox; and the Medical Officers of the Union should have
power to use it at discretion, and to compel persons suffering from this
disease to be removed to it, or to any other hospital in London which may
be appropriated for small pox cases.
It seems to me most desirable, that whenever small pox, or any other
contagious or infectious disease, is extensively prevalent in any District in
London, the local authority of such infected District, should have power to
apply, at their discretion, the 6th clause of the 18th and 19th Vic., c. 116, so
that it might be empowered to provide for "the speedy interment of
the dead, for house to house visitation, and for affording to persons
afflicted by, or threatened with, such epidemic disease, such accommodation
as may be required." As it is impossible thoroughly to disinfect a house
unless all the inmates are removed therefrom, the Board of Works should
always have at their immediate disposal a certain number of rooms, to which
the tenants of any house in which cases of epidemic disease exists, might
resort during the time required for the disinfection of those rooms in which
any person or persons have been attacked with such disease. The clothing,
bedding, and all articles likely to retain infection, should be at once removed
in a covered vehicle set apart for the purpose, to a convenient place where a
proper disinfecting apparatus has been erected; and, as there is not, in
this District, a proper disinfecting apparatus, one should be immediately
provided.