Mr. W. H. Power's report to the local government board respecting a special mortality among infants at Loughton, in the Epping rural sanitary district.

  • Power, W. H.
Date:
1878
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. W. H. Power's report to the local government board respecting a special mortality among infants at Loughton, in the Epping rural sanitary district. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Mr. W. H. Power’s Report to the Local Government Board respecting a Special Mortality among Infants at Loughton, in the Epping Rural Sanitary District. Edward C. Seaton, M.D., ..... Medical Department, April 15, 1878. On the 22nd March 1878, complaint was made by Mr. Octavius Deacon, of Golding’s Hill, Loughton, to Mr. Secretary Cross, that a serious attack by skin disease of his own infant had resulted from the use for nursery purposes of violet powder, which on analysis by Mr. G. Jones, F.C.S., had been found to contain in large proportion white arsenic; and further, Mr. Deacon stated his belief that a large and fatal prevalence of skin disease among infants in Loughton had been due to the use in a similar way of violet powder of a like sort. This representation was referred by Mr. Cross to the Local Government Board. On 25th March the Board received a communication from the clerk to the Epping Rural Sanitary Authority enclosing a statement by the Medical Officer of Health to the effect that a special mortality among infants in his district, already reported by him, had, he has now reason to believe, resulted from the use of violet powder impregnated with arsenic. Hereupon the present inquiry was ordered. I lost no time in putting myself in communication with Mr. Deacon and with the several officers of the Epping Rural Sanitary Authority, and from them received every assistance in carrying out my inquiry. Especially am I beholden to Mr. Fowler, medical officer of health, who has supplied me with important information respecting the occurrences resulting in the mortality referred to; and to Mr. Bell, inspector of nuisances, who has accompanied and assisted me day by day during my investigations. To Mr. Lewis district medical officer, and to other medical men practising in Loughton, my acknowledgments are also due. The result of this inquiry is as follows :— Since early March 1877, 29 infants and children in Loughton have been attacked by, and 13 have died of, a peculiar affection of the skin, that had been regarded as an anomalous kind of erysipelas. The disease was described to me by the mothers or others nursing the cases as presenting the following appearances :— In fatal cases, a generally blackened condition of the skin of the groins and pudenda, which quickly became somewhat swollen and hard; this was frequently the first change observed. Occasionally there was a like condition of the abdomen about and below the umbilicus. The skin of the axillse and folds of the neck was another part in which blackening and swelling was commonly observed. Invasion of these several parts, when it occurred, was simultaneous. In some instances vesication, variously described as “ little white blisters,” “ yellowish bladders ” or “ bags of water ” preceded or appeared about the same time as the blackness; in others, blackness with, or without, vesication was preceded by a short interval by a bluish red con- dition of the parts affected. The vesicles breaking discharged clear fluid, and left raw black surfaces, which did not, it would seem, take on suppurative or sloughing action. In no instance was a tense shining appearance of the skin spoken of ; nor was there, except in one case, any tendency of the blackened condition of the surface to extend over the limbs or trunk. The constitutional symptoms seem to have been great restlessness, with fits of crying or screaming in the first instance, passing soon into a condition apparently of collapse in which the infant quietly died. The average duration of illness in these cases was four to five days. In non-fatal cases, the symptoms varied much in severity. In almost all, blisters or bladders like those already spoken of formed between the folds of the groins, in the armpits, and in the neck. In some cases these vesications broke and formed black excavated sores, in the neighbourhood of which the skin became more or less indurated and discoloured. From some of the sores “ cores came out,” and all discharged yellowish matter. In milder cases minute vesicles burst and left shallow sores that were little if at all discoloured, and that quickly healed under appropriate treatment. The constitutional symptoms do not seem to have been in any instance out of proportion to the local malady. In few, if indeed in any, cases were vomiting or purging prominent symptoms. A