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Infective Diseases. 19
Eleven female patients and one nurse developed the disease,
and the husband of one of the patients who lived outside the
Borough, was infected through visiting his wife. The last of
these eases was isolated on the 20th March.
On 14th March a case occurred in a house quite near to
the Hospital, and although no association with the Hospital
cases was traced, it is reasonable to suppose that infection
was transmitted from these cases.
In the latter part of April further cases occurred in several
districts of the Borough. They originated in a street not far
from the Hospital. Six definite cases occurred in this street,
five in one house, and enquiries elicited the fact that other
members of this household, then well, had probably had the
disease some weeks previously, and might have been infected
in some way by the Hospital cases.
Several members of this household worked in a factory at
Balham, and during April and May, eight other cases of smallpox
occurred among the employees at this factory, two of them
residing outside the Borough.
In the second and third weeks in May, cases occurred
among school children in Streatham, and I was able to trace
a link between these cases and the previous group, in the
person of a boy attending Mitcham Lane School, who was in
the habit of going to a place of entertainment frequented by
members of the household mentioned above. He was at large
for some three weeks suffering from Small-pox. This boy
belonged to a troop of Cubs whose members attended Mitcham
Lane and Eardley Road Schools, and infection was introduced
into both schools by this means. There were 32 cases in this
group.
On the 1st June there were two cases in Springfield Ward,
but no definite link was established between these and the
previous cases.
Early in June several scholars attending Sunnyhill Road
School developed the disease. The connection between these
c 2