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196
The cost of coals used in the nine months has been £11 14s. 6d., being
7 tons at 18/6, and 6 tons at 17/6 (the price paid by contract).
Two one-horse vans, each 8-ft. 6-in. long by 6-ft. 6-in. broad, were built for
the Vestry by Messrs. Hayes & Son at a cost of £54 apiece, and have been in use
for six months. One is reserved for infected articles, the other to take home the
articles after being disinfected at the oven.
During the nine months in which the apparatus has been in use, 9105
articles have passed through it, and in no case has any damage been done to the
articles, which have all been satisfactorily disinfected. Previously to the introduction
of this apparatus it was not infrequent to find that when patients returned
home from infectious disease hospitals fresh cases appeared within a week or two
in the same house. During a period when a disease like scarlet fever is epidemic,
it is difficult of course to say that these latter cases are not due to infection from
outside, but two other reasons have been alleged to explain their occurrence at that
time ; it has been asserted that the original patient may have been sent home
before the dead skin had completely peeled off, while yet it was in an infective
condition,* but considerable care is exercised at the hospitals in this matter, and it
is therefore suggested that, failing the existence of fresh infection, the "return"
cases (as they have been called) were due either to the insufficiency of the disinfection
to which the clothing, &c., were submitted, or, that clothing which had been
worn before the disease had properly shown itself, had been put away until the
return of the patient, and had thus escaped disinfection. Since the introduction
of this apparatus, notwithstanding the extensive epidemic of scarlet fever, there
has been a marked reduction in the number of such cases, and this I ascribe to the
thoroughness of the new process and to the greater care taken to secure all articles
which may have been exposed to infection for the purpose of passing them through
the oven.

* Another reason suggested by Dr. Hopwood, the Resident Medical Officer of the London Fever
Hospital, appears to be a more likely explanation; persons who have been in fever wards for some
time, must on leaving have in their air-passages germs which would be in the air they had been
continuously breathing, and these germs might be given off on the patient's return home.
Especially in regard to diphtheria this explanation might hold good, as it is now known that the
germs of this disease may remain in the throat for considerable periods after the patient has
recovered from the attack which has protected him from their further influence.