View report page

20
children would each remain three months unprotected by
vaccination. From January 1st to July 28th, 293 cases were
admitted into the Hospital. No case of Small Pox occurred
among these children, with two exceptions, in which the origin
of infection was traced ; this is remarkable if we are to suppose
that the air was impregnated with the materies morbi.
And, thirdly, as to the distribution of the houses invaded.
During the two years 116 houses were invaded in the halfmile
area, of these 72 were upon the system into which
the Hospital empties its sewage. In speaking of this
system I exclude that portion of the sewer and its branches
which is beyond 500 yards above the junction with the
Hospital drain; the system drains about one third of the
houses in the half-mile area, thus we find 72 houses invaded
which are drained into this system liable to contamination
from the Hospital, and only 44 invaded houses in the
remaining two-thirds of the half-mile area.
I do not wish to infer that the contagion of Small Pox is
never conveyed by the air, but I think there is good reason
to doubt that the poison is sufficiently intense in the
atmosphere about one of our Small Pox Hospitals, to infect,
in a direct manner, any person. It is possible that Small
Pox particles may fall into open cisterns, or into milk, or
other articles of food, and, germinating, become sufficiently
powerful to infect; or that particles may be conveyed by
sewer gas, and by means of defective drainage, into the
houses; for particles from the washings of infected linen,
and from the excreta of patients, may, in the warmer atmosphere
of the drain, find a congenial and fertile soil for their
growth and increase.
If these Hospitals are to remain in our midst, it is to be
hoped that the managers will find some means of treating
their sewage so as to render it innocuous before allowing it
to enter the main sewer.