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18
must not however be supposed from what I have just stated
that I do not consider schools to act as sources of infection,
because there is no doubt that they do, but then it is by
direct infection from one scholar to another.
The source of the infection could be traced in a few cases
only. I alluded in my last report, to a child who was living
in a locality in which there were no small pox cases, and
who was attacked with the disease within 14 days after
receiving a cake and a book which were sent to her by a
person who was recovering from small pox. Several workmen
in this District have been attacked after working at the
Deptford Hospital, or in private houses which were infected
by small pox patients. In one instance, a woman went to
visit her sister, but on the street door being opened, she
noticed an unpleasant smell, did not enter the house, and
was attacked with premonitory symptoms in 12 days, and
died six days afterwards. As a female attending on the
patient opened the door, it may have been communicated to
her, not by the air of the house, but by the clothes of the
nurse. In one notable instance, an infected child was
retained in a house where there were three families, three of
the children being unvaccinated. One of the children was
removed to a distance and had the premonitory symptoms
of small pox, followed by the rash, 18 days after removal,
there not being any small pox in the neighbourhood. The
whole of the children in the house took the disease, and we
traced more than 20 cases to infection from the child first
attacked. There were many other similar instances of
children being retained in small houses and treated by
medical practitioners, although the houses were quite unfit
for isolation of the disease, and no information was given to
me, and consequently no disinfection was carried out until
the disease had attacked other persons. There seems also to
be a great objection to re-vaccination on the part of many
medical men, as well as of the public, as I rarely find that
the inhabitants of infected houses are re-vaccinated, although