Transcribed from the 1878 edition , email
Edward C.Seaton, M.D.,
Medical Department,
April 15, 1878.
On the 22nd March 1878, complaint was made by Mr. OctaviusDeacon, of Golding’s Hill, Loughton, to Mr. SecretaryCross, that a serious attack by skin disease of his own infanthad resulted from the use for nursery purposes of violet powder,which on analysis by Mr. G. Jones, F.C.S., had been found tocontain in large proportion white arsenic; and further, Mr.Deacon stated his belief that a large and fatal prevalence ofskin disease among infants in Loughton had been due to the use ina similar way of violet powder of a like sort. Thisrepresentation was referred by Mr. Cross to the Local GovernmentBoard. On 25th March the Board received a communicationfrom the clerk to the Epping Rural Sanitary Authority enclosing astatement by the Medical Officer of Health to the effect that aspecial mortality among infants in his district, already reportedby him, had, he has now reason to believe, resulted from the useof violet powder impregnated with arsenic. Hereupon thepresent inquiry was ordered.
I lost no time in putting myself in communication with Mr.Deacon and with the several officers of the Epping Rural SanitaryAuthority, and from them received every assistance in carryingout my inquiry. Especially am I beholden to Mr. Fowler,medical officer of health, who has supplied me with importantinformation respecting the occurrences resulting in the mortalityreferred to; and to Mr. Bell, inspector of nuisances, who hasaccompanied and assisted me day by day during myinvestigations. To Mr. Lewis district medical officer, andto other medical men practising in Loughton, my acknowledgmentsare also due.
The result of this inquiry is as follows:—
Since early March 1877, 29 infants and children in Loughtonhave been attacked by, and 13 have died of, a peculiar affectionof the skin, that had been regarded as an anomalous kind oferysipelas. The disease was described to me by the mothersor others nursing the cases as presenting the followingappearances:—
In fatal cases, a generally blackened condition of the skin ofthe groins and pudenda, which quickly became somewhat swollen andhard; this was frequently the first change observed. Occasionally there was a like condition of the abdomen about andbelow the umbilicus. The skin of the axillæ and foldsof the neck was another part in which blackening and swelling wascommonly observed. Invasion of these several parts, when itoccurred, was simultaneous. In some instances vesication,variously described as “little white blisters,”“yellowish bladders” or “bags of water”preceded or appeared about the same time as the blackness; inothers, blackness with, or without, vesication was preceded by ashort interval by a bluish red condition of the partsaffected. The vesicles breaking discharged clear fluid, andleft raw black surfaces, which did not, it would seem, take onsuppurative or sloughing action. In no instance was a tenseshining appearance of the skin spoken of; nor was there, exceptin one case, any tendency of the blackened condition of thesurface to extend over the limbs or trunk. Theconstitutional symptoms seem to have been great restlessness,with fits of crying or screaming in the first instance, passingsoon into a condition apparently of collapse in which the infantquietly died. The average duration of illness in thesecases was four to five days.
In non-fatal cases, the symptoms varied much inseverity. In almost all, blisters or bladders like thosealready spoken of formed bet