[1354] A table of figures showing this will be found in Dr B. A. Whitelegge’s second lecture on “Changes of Type in Epidemic Diseases.” Brit. Med. Journ. 4 March, 1893.
[1355] Longstaff, Trans. Epid. Soc. N. S. IV. (1880), 421, and Studies in Statistics. London, 1891, p. 310. D. A. Gresswell, Contribution to the Natural History of Scarlatina. Oxford, 1890, p. 193.
[1356] Journ. Scot. Meteorol. Soc. July, 1874, p. 195.
[1357] Cutaneous Diseases. Vol. I. 1808, p. 254.
[1358] An unfortunate event that came under the writer’s notice some years ago may be illustrative of this. Two women with cancer of the breast were operated on, the one after the other, in the same operating theatre. Their beds were in the same hospital ward, but separated by the whole length of the ward. A few days after the operations, one of the women developed erysipelas, which was most extensive on the back; very soon after the other woman got the disease in a precisely similar way; they both died of it. As it seemed improbable that No. 1 had been infected in the ward, or that No. 2 had been infected from No. 1, (some dozen surgical cases between them escaping,) the suggestion arises of a common source of both infections in the operating theatre. The operating table was covered by a woollen cloth, of red colour so as not to show blood stains; it must have contained a good deal of putrid invisible blood from former operations.
[1359] The first instance showing this came from a dairy at Hendon. See James Cameron, M.D. Trans. Epid. Soc. V. (1885-6), p. 104; and ibid. VIII. 40. One of the latest and most fully investigated came from a dairy near Glasgow, J. B. Russell, M.D., LL.D., and A. K. Chalmers, M.D. Glas. Med. Journ. Jan. 1893, p. 1. An outbreak at Wimbledon and Merton is described, Rep. Med. Off. Loc. Gov. Bd. for 1886, p. 327. See also ibid. for 1882, p. 63. The scarlatina caused by cream (with strawberries) is traced, ibid. for 1875, p. 72. A very clear case of scarlatinal epidemic due to contaminated milk occurred at Blackheath, both among children and adults, in April, 1894.
[1360] E. M. Crookshank, Path. Trans. XXXIX. 382, in an extensive prevalence of cowpox on a dairy farm near Cricklade. No scarlatina could be traced in the neighbourhood.
[1361] Alfred Carpenter, M.D. Lancet, 28 Jan. and 4 Feb. 1871.
[1362] Wall, Gent. Magaz. 1751, p. 71, 501. He quotes Severinus to the effect that the great epidemic of garrotillo in the province of Naples in 1618 was preceded by a murrain.
[1363] Prince A. Morrow, “Drug Eruptions,” edited for the New Sydenham Society by T. Colcott Fox, in Selected Monographs on Dermatology. London, 1893.