The sanitary chronicles of the Parish of St. Marylebone being the annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1894.

  • St. Marylebone (London, England). Parish.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

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

Credit: The sanitary chronicles of the Parish of St. Marylebone being the annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1894. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/48 page 13
    SMALLPOX. 13 cases kept at home proves the services which the admirable ambulance organisation of the Asylums Board confers on the Metropolis, and shows clearly that if every case of smallpox was early diagnosed and removed, no spread of the disease would be possible. The officers of the sanitary and disinfecting depart ments worked well and for long hours, and they were thanked by the Vestry for their services. The Guardians also rendered most efficient help in giving facilities for re-vaccination, and in appointing special officers to aid the Public Vaccinator, Dr. Greenwood, whose personal assistance was most valuable, and who for a time may be said to have lived in the affected area. Subsequent events have, however, shown clearly that the outbreak was never stamped out completely. The efforts of the Sanitary Authority, of the Guardians, and of the Asylums Board, were similar in their effects to that of a corps of firemen who, being suddenly called, rapidly allay and extinguish a fire, but unseen sparks are wafted from the scene of the first conflagration and alight in other places, to smoulder there unheeded until, under favourable circum stances, the flame bursts out, and at the present moment these sparks are here and there causing trouble. The writer is, however, in hopes, with approved appliances, that efforts at stamping out may be in the future more successful. A part of this incomplete success he believes to be due to omission to disinfect certain articles of clothing. For instance : a good many of those attacked, and their friends, were very poor and had only one suit of clothing. Friends or relatives of the patient were often in close attendance on the sick for 24 to 48 hours, yet having no change, it was impracticable to disinfect in every case the clothing on their backs for want of a suitable shelter supplied with bath accommodation, and with disinfecting appliances; a scheme has, however, while these sheets are passing through the press, been adopted by the Vestry to meet this want, so that 1895 will inaugurate a new era with regard to our disinfecting appliances.
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