a, quoted by Watson, is the following: "During
the raging of one epidemic, 300 women engaged in coal dredging at
Newcastle, and wading all day in the sea, escaped the complaint." Reading
this, the mind naturally turns to Dr. Blackley's glass slide exposed on
the shore at Filey, and upon which no pollen was deposited, while eighty
pollen grains were deposited on a glass at a higher elevation.
SMALL-POX.
Let us next inquire into the evidence regarding the conveyence of
small-pox through the air. In the supplement to the Tenth Report of the
Local Government Board for 1880-81 (c. 3,290) is a report by Mr. W.H.
Power on the influence of the Fulham, Hospital (for small-pox) on the
neighborhood surrounding it. Mr. Power investigated the incidence of
small-pox on the neighborhood, both before and after the establishment of
the hospital. He found that, in the year included between March, 1876,
and March, 1877, before the establishment of the hospital, the incidence
of small-pox on houses in Chelsea, Fulham and Kensington amounted to 0.41
per cent. (i.e., that one house out of every 244 was attacked by
small-pox in the ordinary way), and that the area inclosed by a circle
having a radius of one mile round the spot where the hospital was
subsequently established (called in the report the "special area") was,
as a matter of fact, rather more free from small-pox than the rest of the
district. After the establishment of the hospital in March, 1877, the
amount of small-pox in the "special area" round the hospital very notably
increased, as is shown by the table by Mr. Power, given below.
This table shows conclusively that the houses nearest the hospital were
in the greatest danger of small-pox. It might naturally be supposed that
the excessive incidence of the disease upon the houses nearest to the
hospital was due to business traffic between the hospital and the
dwellers in the neighborhood, and Mr. Power admits that he started on his
investigation with this belief, but with the prosecution of his work he
found such a theory untenable.
ADMISSIONS OF ACUTE SMALL-POX TO FULHAM HOSPITAL, AND INCIDENCE OF
SMALL-POX UPON HOUSES IN SEVERAL DIVISIONS OF THE SPECIAL AREA DURING
FIVE EPIDEMIC PERIODS.
+-------+---------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| | Incidence on every 100 houses within the |
| | special area and its divisions.
|