Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year ending December 31st, 1900.

Fulham (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.

Date:: [1901]

Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year ending December 31st, 1900. Source: Wellcome Collection.

90/97 (page 85)

time, in three of the loads, no case of Diphtheria had been notified of late, so that there was a very strong presumption that at any rate the four who were simultaneously attacked, were infected by some child attending the class. Moreover, in addition to these, there were the three other children who had been attending that class, who, though showing no clinical signs of Diphtheria at the time of my inspection, had suspicious previous histories, and from whom the Diphtheria Bacillus was subsequently isolated. Hence, having regard to the prevalence of the disease in the district, its special incidence on the children attending this class, and my knowledge that not only had they been exposed to the infection of mild, or perhaps I should say, Bacteriological Diphtheria, but also to that of acute Diphtheria in the person of P.F., who was sent from school so suffering, I had no hesitation in advising the Sanitary Authority to require the closure of that class-room, and also the exclusion of the children living in the same houses, as otherwise there was, in my opinion, grave danger of a more general outbreak in the school. There was, I considered, no reason for any further steps to be taken at that time, as the rest of the, school was not affected. The only other recent case in the remaining classes of the Infants' Department, with some 600 children on the roll, was one in class F, and at that time, as I have stated, I was under the impression that this child was attending class H. In the Boy's Department, in addition to the two cases in Standard 3, above-mentioned, a boy in Standard 1 was notified on October 21st, and on enquiry, I ascertained that on October 14th, a boy sitting next to him had vomited when in school, been absent for a few days ill, and had then returned to school; but on examining him in the school, I found him suffering from mild Diphtheria, and at his home found his sister, who had been attending the Infants' school, and had sickened after him, suf fering from the disease in a severe form, neither case having been notified. There have been, however, no other primary cases notified in this Department up to the present time.