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9
from small-pox in this District, during the last six months of the present
epidemic, when compared with that in the whole of London. The deaths
in London from small-pox during the last six months, have been 2020,
or 1 in 1727 of the population, and in the Whitechapel District, during
the same period, the deaths have been 38, or 1 in 2015, including 18 which
occurred in the Homerton Hospital of patients who had been removed
thereto from this District. This fact is certainly remarkable, and especially
so, when we consider the extreme density of the population; on which
account small-pox is more likely to spread among those who have not been
protected by vaccination than in less crowded localities.
THE BOARD OF WORKS, WHITECHAPEL DISTRICT.
REPORT on the outbreak of Small-pox in the Girls' Refuge and King Edward
Certified Industrial Schools, Home No. 1, Albert Street, Mile End New
Town.
Gentlemen,
On Monday, the 16th instant, in consequence of information
received of the existence of small-pox in the above-named Schools, I visited the
same, and from inquiries, the Matron informed me that there had been 9 cases of
small-pox in the Institution since the 11th, all of which had been sent to the
Small-pox Hospital at Homerton.
The first case occurred on Wednesday, the 11th July, in a child named Emily
Linstead, aged 13 years, who had been in the School upwards of three months.
She had had no opportunity of associating with other children, for she had only
been out for walking exercise with the other girls, at which times they are always
accompanied with the Governess, and no visitor had been to see her. The second
case was that of a child named Julia Price, aged 11 years, which occurred on the
morning of the next day. In the evening of the same day another case occurred.
On the following day, Friday, 3 other children were attacked, and on Saturday 3
more; and on the Tuesday, the day after my visit, another child was attacked with
the disease, thus making a total of 10 cases in six days.
I endeavoured to trace the cause of this outbreak of small-pox; but I have
been unable to do so satisfactorily.
It appears that no child during the fortnight previous to the first appearance
of the disease who was admitted into the School had been in communication with
any person suffering from small-pox; but as the inmates of this establishment are
taken from a neglected and destitute class, it is highly probable that some of them
may have associated with children who had recently recovered from the disease
and may have brought the seeds, or germs, of it in their clothes.
There is reason to believe that the oontagious matter of small-pox may remain
in clothes for a considerable and perhaps indefinite period; and hence, in all future
admissions it will be necessary not only to continue the practice of giving each
child on admission a warm bath, and of washing the clothes, but it will be
incumbent on the authorities of the School to submit the clothes to a dry heat of
250 degrees, so that any germs of a contagious disease which may be in them may
be destroyed.