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113
patient were both servants to another milkman living in the
neighbourhood, in the distribution of whose milk no outbreak
of Scarlet Fever whatever had occurred. The
suspected milkman's own servant, though living in the
same house with the patient, never saw him during any
part of his illness, and moreover seemed apparently entirely
free from disease. The case is not a clear one, and I did not
think it right, therefore, to do more than lay the facts before
the Sanitary Committee at the time; and as nothing further
was elicited to explain the outbreak, and no other cases of
Scarlet Fever followed, I thought it best not to give the
matter publicity. I am inclined however to believe, that
the poison of the disease was really conveyed by one day's
distribution of milk; and that in some way or other the
servant who had lodged in the same house as the scarlatinal
patient was the immediate source of contagion.
The only other subject to which I desire to call attention,
is the seizure, on the 1st February, by Inspectors
Stevenson and Dewey, of a large quantity of horse flesh
intended for sale as human food. The Inspectors' attention
had been drawn to suspicious proceedings on premises at
the rear of No. 1, Linnell Road. In order to ascertain the
facts they spent part of the night in a neighbouring room
overlooking the place, and so found that horse flesh in large
abundance was being prepared for human food. In the
course of the night a portion of this was taken away in a
cart, which the Inspectors followed to a butcher's shop in
the London Road, and to several other shops in Southwark
and Newington. In the morning the Inspectors entered the
premises, and seized one ton fifteen hundredweight of horse
flesh, which was unfit for food, and was afterwards condemned
at the Lambeth Police Court by Mr. Partridge.