In the winter and spring of 1903 -1904 there
was in Greenock an Epidemic of Smallpox which smouldered in the heart of - the town till the 9th of February 1904, when it suddenly took up the most alarming activity, testing and straining to the utmost th
Hospital accomodation, the Medical Officer of Health,
Sanitary Inspector, his office staff and the members
of the Health Committee, only sinking to comparative
mildness about the end of April, and not leaving the
community till the 15th of July, when the last case
was dismissed from Hospital and the building closed.It is on this epidemic, and my experiences in
it that I base the observations and remarks which
follow.I propose to give at first a very short sketch
of the history of the epidemic, showing in chart fo
at what period the wave was greatest, and what steps
were taken to treat those affected, and safeguard
the unaffected. Then I shall describe the Smallpox
Hospital at Craigieknowes, both the old and permanent
buildings and the new or temporary erections, mentioning their good and bad features, and what amount and
kind of accommodation seemed to me to be required in
a Smallpox Hospital. How cases were admitted; how
their clothes were dealt with; how their friends
were acquainted with their progress and the method
of dismissal and of burial, will each be dealt with
in their sequence. Coming then to the nature of
the actual cases, the questions which will present
themselves and be handled will be such as the social
conditions of those affected, the probable source of
infection, the nature of the onset or sickening, the
number of says between the onset and the appearance
of the eruption, and where the eruption made its
first appearance. As points of less importance, bu
of some interest, I shall give statistics on how long
cases remained at home, amongst their people after
the appearance of the rash; and on the time taken
by medical practitioners to make their diagnosis,
counting the number of days either from the date of
the appearance of the rash, where the medical attend
ant had been in attendance before its appearance, or
from the date of his first seeing the case after the
appearance of the eruption. I shall then go into
the matter of the general characters of the eruptions
I saw during my residence in the Hospital, their
course, and method of "drying" and "cleaning"; into
our methods
temperature
subjects.
rashes will
of treatment; into the question of the
in smallpox, complications and such like
Notes on a few cases showing initial
follow these. The question of splenic
enlargement is one on which I made frequent and careful observations, and of these I shall give my finding. The discussion of unvaccinated cases, vaccinated cases, concurrent vaccination and variola, cases
which had suffered from a previous attack of the
smallpox, and of fatal cases, will next be taken up.
After that I purpose giving some notes of peculiar
and interesting cases, and in that way to bring to
a this thesis, which is written entirely on
what I have personally seen,investigated, experienced
thought and done in the few months during which I
acted as House Physician to the Greenock Smallpox
Hospital, at Craigieknowes, under the late Dr James
Wallace who was at that time the Medical Officer of
Health to the Burgh
