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14
Importance of the Early Notification of Epidemic Diseases
to the Sanitary Authority.
The neglect in not giving early intimation of a case of small-pox
is strikingly exemplified by the following disastrous consequences
which occurred in a street in Mile End New Town.
On the 10th of August last, a child aged six years, died of smallpox,
at No. 6, Dunk Street, when notice of the death was sent to the
Sanitary Officer by the Local Registrar of the District. Inquiry
into the particulars of this death was immediately instituted by the
Sanitary Inspector, who learnt that the patient had been attended
by a medical practitioner, but who did not send a notification of the
case either to the Inspector or the Medical Officer of Health. Shortly
after the visit of the Sanitary Inspector the body was removed by the
Relieving Officer to the dead house in the stone yard, where it
remained until it was buried.
On revisiting the same house on the 18th of August, the Inspector
ascertained that another child of the same family was suffering from
small-pox. This case was also attended as a private patient by a medical
practitioner, who did not intimate the existence of the disease to the
Sanitary Officer. On the same day the Inspector ascertained that two
other children, living in the same house, were suffering from smallpox,
and, on revisiting the house on the following day, two more
children were found by the Inspector to have been attacked with the
same disease.
The Inspector having reason to believe that there were other
cases of small-pox in the same street, visited the whole of the
houses therein, 42 in number, and ascertained that 7 other cases of
small-pox existed in that street, thus making a total of 12 cases,
all of which were removed to the hospital. Some difficulty was
experienced in inducing the parents to have their children removed
to the hospital. So soon as all the children were removed from the
several houses in which cases of small-pox had existed, the rooms,
clothes, and bedding, which had been used by the patients, were
disinfected.
I have no hesitation in saying that had intimation been given to
the Sanitary Officer of the existence of the first case of small-pox,
this sad calamity would have been prevented.