The public health a public question. First report of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association on the chief evils affecting the sanitary condition of the metropolis, with suggestions for their removal; and containing the proceedings of the public meeting held at Freemason's Hall, Feb. 6th, 1850.

  • Metropolitan Sanitary Association (London, England)
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The public health a public question. First report of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association on the chief evils affecting the sanitary condition of the metropolis, with suggestions for their removal; and containing the proceedings of the public meeting held at Freemason's Hall, Feb. 6th, 1850. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    as a fever haunt; eleven years ago Dr. Southwood Smith recorded, on the evidence of the then parochial medical officer, that it was a pest den; three years ago, it was proved that it had continued so ever since, and even then was a fever haunt. The continuance of disease in this spot, and the prevalence of cholera when the epidemic should have arrived, were predicted. Since then, typhus and cholera have taken off many victims from that Square, and lamentably verified the prediction. “-Square has ever been a constant fever haunt. The well, which supplies water to twenty houses, is within two feet of a large cesspool. “ Windmill Square, Shoreditch. The inhabitants are always ill from the same cause; eleven out of twenty-two inhabitants died of cholera. “ Silkmill Row, Hackney. Sixty-one out of sixty-three inhabitants were ill from a similar cause. They were glad to drink water from the kennel. “ Beckford Row, Bethnal Green. A narrow row of sixteen two-roomed houses, one above the other; each room occupied by a separate family. The place is a concentration of abominations. Three shillings and sixpence and three shillings a-week are paid for these miserable habitations. In one house alone, eight cases of fever occurred; in fourteen weeks, thirteen cases had taken place. The other face of this row, called Alfred Row, was similar. In the last house the atmosphere could scarcely be breathed in consequence of its impurity. In one of the rooms were three cases of small-pox; one had just proved fatal. In the lower room of the next house, four persons were recovering from, or were afflicted with, confluent small-pox. It wras in these houses that the chief outbreak of cholera took place, in that registration district. The cost in poor-law relief in consequence of disease induced by the state of these houses, would have bought up the ivhole property'. Forty-eight rooms, nearly all containing a separate family, were supplied with water from one open barrel, twenty-one inches in diameter and twelve inches deep, situate under the same roof as the privy : the water was let on only two hours thrice a week.” In all these instances, and a thousand others might be given, the expenses necessary to remedy the chief evils, and to render the habita¬ tions comparatively healthy, would in each case amount to only a few pounds. It has been most satisfactorily demonstrated that, for a sum not ex¬ ceeding threepence per week per house, those simple yet important