Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell]
This page requires JavaScript
94
cases were removed at the same time, from houses closely
adjoining some houses in which during the next three weeks
19 cases of Typhus occurred, it is impossible not to suspect
that these were really mild and uncharacteristic, but nevertheless
true, cases of Typhus; and that they were the
source of the subsequent outbreak. The disease was
of a mild character; out of the 46 undoubted cases
(or out of the 48 if we include the two doubtful
cases at the beginning of the epidemic) there were
only five deaths.
There seems to have been a total absence of Typhus
from the parish, from July, 1885, until January, 1887, Avhen
the disease suddenly showed itself at 23, Ilarling street, a
house occupied by three families. The first case was that
of the mother of one of the families, who died at home on
the 3rd of January. On the 13th February a female
suffering from Typhus was removed to hospital. On the
31st January four females and one male were removed, and
on the 23rd February a male. There were thus eight cases
in all, of which four (one at home, and three in hospital)
proved fatal. All the cases occurred in two families of
close relatives, comprising ten persons. The other family
escaped. The source of the disease was not discovered;
it was confined to the one house; and, so far as we know,
there has been no Typhus whatever in the parish since this
outbreak.
It may be added, that small and unaccountable localized
outbreaks of Typhus have, during the last three or four
years, been discovered in other metropolitan parishes
besides our own, so that, doubtless, there is a connection
between them all, and that the disease as usual occurred