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Mr. Johnson, the Chief Sanitary Inspector, related to me
on Friday night, June 18th, the circumstances discovered in
the course of investigating the cases notified that day, and I
immediately suspected milk infection.
On Friday night or Saturday morning every dairyman
and purveyor of milk in Wimbledon was visited and advised
to sterilize all milk for a period of fourteen days, whilst on the
Friday evening a letter was sent to every Medical Practitioner
in the district stating: "An extensive epidemic of Scarlet
"Fever has occurred in the surrounding districts which
"appears to be spreading to Wimbledon. All the evidence
"points to an infected milk supply. Under the circumstances
"I shall be glad if you will advise that all milk before being
"used should be sterilized."
In the course of Mr. Johnson's investigations, it was
found that the cases were arising at houses receiving their
domestic milk supply from one of three dairymen, and upon
further enquiry that these purveyors received a portion of
their milk from one contractor. In view of these facts, I
arranged for the surplus milk from this source to be destroyed,
and Notices were served on the registered occupier not to
receive or sell in Wimbledon milk from the same firm for fourteen
days.
A telegram and a letter were also sent to the Manager of
the Dairy Company implicated, prohibiting milk being sent
into Wimbledon for a similar period.
On Saturday morning, 19th June, I had a consultation
with Dr. T. Henry Jones, the Deputy County Medical Officer,
and Dr. Belilios, Medical Officer of Health for Merton (whose
district was similarly affected), and we were also in telephonic
communication with the Medical Officers of Health for Westminster,
Maiden, and Kingston.
From information given me by the Superintendent of our
Isolation Hospital, Dr. Clapham, by medical men in whose
practices the majority of the cases occurred, and from personal
observation and experience in this epidemic, I am in a position
to say that, speaking generally, the cases were of a mild
type. The pulse was not high and the temperature was
moderate. The throat affection was only bad in a few cases
and the remainder were mild. The onset was sudden. There
was sickness in 56 per cent. of the cases. A noticeable feature
in some cases was the quickness with which peeling followed
the rash. In the majority of cases a rash—generally slight,
but in some instances most decided—appeared in about three
days, but in other cases the rash delayed its appearance for
several days longer. The strawberry tongue was present in
only a small proportion of the cases.
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