Report on a public local inquiry into an outbreak of typhoid fever at Croydon in October and November 1937.

Date:
19
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on a public local inquiry into an outbreak of typhoid fever at Croydon in October and November 1937. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a day, of which the Addington Well gives 1,000,000 gallons. There is a statutory limitation on the amount that can be pumped from this well. All these wells extend into and derive their supply from the Upper Chalk. Amongst the storage reservoirs supplied from them is one.at Addington which, apart from an adjoining elevated tank, represents the high level storage and which, at the material time, though receiving some water from the Stroud Green Well, was primarily filled from the Addington Well the water from which passed through a 21-inch rising main to be delivered above top water level so that water The area of the Borough is 12,617 acres of which some 3,700 risk ’’’ on the high level supply was estimated during the Inquiry as being between 36,000 and 40,000 out of a total of With the exception of a few isolated outlying cases all the primary cases of typhoid were, during the material time, within water. For instance, one outlying case on the low level supply was found to be a member of a football club where there was a tap on the high level supply. On 3rd November, 1937, after the notification of a number of cases, and after it had become apparent that it was high level supply water that was the common element so far as the possible source of infection was concerned, samples of the water from the .Addington Well and the Stroud Green Well were submitted for examination by the Ministry of Health’s Bacteriologist. On 4th November, 1937, it was ascertained as a result of tests that the Stroud Green water was quite satisfactory but that the water from the Addington Well was heavily polluted although, for reasons which will appear later, it was not possible to isolate the typhoid bacillus. On the same day the supply from the Addington Well was cut off and it appears certain that no primary case was infected after that date. Indeed it seems highly probable that infection ceased not later than rst November, when an adequate measure of chlorination was applied to’ the well (a matter I will deal with when I come to the second subject matter of my reference) and when the carrier to whom I have referred had stopped working in the well. I would add that the existence of any other possible cause common to the large number of cases of primary infection was eliminated.
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