View report page

Cottenham Urban District Council.
Public Health Department,
The Green, Totteham,
September 29th, 1902.
To the Members of the
Tottenham Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit to you my Report on the Epidemic of Small
Pox which has prevailed in your District during the past 13 months,
incorporating therewith some statistical and general information on the
subject of vaccination, not ordinarily available to the general public in
a concise form, and which I trust may prove useful to Councillors in
"spreading the light.":—
Small Pox in Tottenham from August 28th, 1901, to
September 29th, 1902.
The Epidemic began with a gravely instructive case, the
particulars of which I may therefore be pardoned for quoting briefly.
On August 28th, 1901, George Howard, living at Culvert Road,
but working in the City (where Small Pox was already rampant),
feeling ill at his work went to King's College Hospital, where his case
was diagnosed as one of Small Pox, and removed to one of the Hospital
Ships. Unfortunately, however, his wife was subsequently allowed to
visit him by the Asylums Board Authorities, and she not only
contracted the disease herself, but brought home the infection to her
daughter.
This is a practical example of the manner in which the disease
spreads, and of the danger of allowing visitors to cases of Small Pox.
The disease having once entered Tottenham spread rapidly, its
progress being facilitated by the large number of unvaccinated
individuals and insanitary houses in the district.
The following table gives the monthly number of cases and
deaths during the epidemic:—