Licence: In copyright
Credit: Dr. Walter Robert Hadwen's works. 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.
302/324 page 14
![unvaccinated who were, as I have shown, brought in contact with these early cases, declined to contract the disease. In 1894 smallpox still cropped up within the confines of the city. Seven cases were notified. The Medical Officer of Health states in his Annual Report:— None of the cases seemed connected with each other, but arose now and again without any communica- tion. This is a flat contradiction of the whimsical theory he pro- pounds two years later, as quoted on p. 11. No definite proofs of importation could be discovered. Gloucester was as unvaccinated then as a year later. Still there was no epidemic. A SUGGESTIVE FACT. Now I ventured a suggestion in the case of the Midland Railway official of a foul-smelling street ventilator immediately opposite his front door as a possible guide to the starting-point of smallpox somewhat nearer home than Burton-on-Trent. I will now suggest a solution in the case of Mr. B. Some considerable time after Mr. B. and his family had vacated their house, it became necessary in view of alterations to inspect the drains. And what was the discovery? The drain-pipes were riddled in every direction and lay, on an average, only eighteen inches below the soil. There were but three sound drain-pipes out of the whole number. The inmates had been living in an atmosphere of sewer-gas, and the susceptible ones, I take it, suffered from blood poisoning in consequence, which manifested itself upon the body in the form of smallpox. But the possibility of the existence of such conditions or their probable connection with a, zymotic disease does not appear to have entered into Dr. Coupland's calculations. The country must be searched for an importation, whilst a not improbable cause is lying unheeded under the very nose of the Medical Officer of Health. Dr. Coupland gives his readers a diagram in order to graphically illustrate this personal contact theory. The third case is traced to B. in this way: he was a fellow shopman of the young man who was courting the sister of the infected daughter of Mr B Quite a sort of House that Jack built. Dr. Coupland admits that he does not know whether she actually visited the shop while still infectious. But the singular coincidence in this indirect relationship (he might have said very indirect ) is quite sufficient evidence, apparently, for a scientific man with a theory to establish. Accordingly, W. S., who never visited B. s house hut had been ailing for several weeks, and was living at the time within, the area of foul-smelling manholes, is diagrammed as No. 3. „ UNFORTUNATE LINKS. No x is next credited with infecting three more whose initials and addresses are given. Dr. Coupland calls one of the three iJj next link, which consisted in the probable infection of ajjoung girl [called No. 5.] the friend of No. 3, who was empkned 10](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21361691_0302.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
