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56 patients were resident in Common Lodging Houses in the borough.
There are a good many such places in Stepney. I had an anxious time in
preventing the spread of infection not only to other parts of this borough,
but to other parts of London and the country, and a great many night
inspections were made. The problem was rather a difficult one owing to the
character and type of the occupants, but we managed to get a good many
of them vaccinated. The disease was confined to 7 of the Common Lodging
Houses and this good result was chiefly due to the prompt measures taken
in tracing every inmate of the lodging houses and having a high percentage
vaccinated.
One Common Lodging House was in close proximity to a hospital and
the contacts used to attend there. The Medical Superintendent, already on
guard for such an eventuality, took prompt measures to isolate them and
when suspicious cases arose he communicated with me immediately to see
the cases with him.
121 patients were removed from the local hospitals—68 being in-patients
and 53 out-patients.—Of the latter, 16 resided in neighbouring boroughs
and are not included in our returns. With reference to the in-patients, the
Medical Superintendents always vaccinated the ward contacts, and by this
early step being taken, there were very few secondary cases occurring in
the wards of the hospitals. I advised the hospitals concerned not to allow
visitors to the infected wards until the period of infection was over, and I
also asked them to forward me at intervals the discharges and lists of visitors
to the wards whilst the infected patients were there. All the contacts were
kept under supervision and as a result many of them were found to have
contracted the disease.
11 cases were removed from doctors' surgeries and 5 from the Public
Health Offices. Contacts at the surgeries were obtained and their homes
visited for the specified period.
80 cases affected 32 firms in the Borough—43 patients resided in Stepney
and 37 were non-residents.
There were 1,436 direct work contacts of these cases and many of them
resided outside the borough. All firms were visited daily and frequent
medical inspections were made there. Absentees were followed up
immediately.