[Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Berkshire Combined Sanitary District.

  • Berkshire Combined Sanitary District.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Berkshire Combined Sanitary District. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    notifications were received of seven cases from houses in Clewer and Dedworth. In May there were thirteen, and five additional up to the middle of June, after which only one further attack occurred (in Old Windsor), on July ioth. Surrey Parishes.—The earliest attack in this part of the district occurred at Thorpe, late in February, the patient taking the infection from a tramp who had been going- about the village (the marks on his face attracting attention), and who called at his cottage. He probably also infected a schoolgirl, living in another part of the village (Thorpe), as she was attacked on the same day as the man just referred to, with what was taken for chicken pox, and in her turn she infected other members of her family; but it was not until the last days of March that medical advice was obtained, and the true nature of the attacks ascertained. A nurse was placed in charge of the first patient, and subsequently of the others; and as additional attacks were notified in Egham and the Hythe, another smaller, but equally well-equipped, tent hospital was put up in a meadow, kindly placed at the disposal of the Authority by Mr. Leigh Bennett. Eleven cases, in eight families, were notified between the last weeks of February and May, one being that of a relative of a person referred to in the report on the Cookham district as having taken the infection, as did this man, by riding to a funeral in an infected convey- ance. Two other cases were those of gipsies found to be suffering from the disease while camping out on the towing path opposite Magna Charta island. In view of the risk of the infection being spread by the large numbers of tramps, &c., attending Ascot races, I obtained the consent of the Authority to the putting up of a bell tent on land placed at their disposal by the Crown authorities (in a very isolated place), to which any such persons shewing evident marks of the disease might be temporarily taken, and the police were instructed by the Chief Constable, Col. Blandy, to keep watch for any case of the kind. One of the men employed at the hospitals was constantly kept