Facts and observations on the sanitory state of Glasgow during the last year : with statistical tables of the late epidemic, shewing the connection existing between poverty, disease, and crime / by Robt. Perry.

  • Perry, Robert, 1783-1848.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts and observations on the sanitory state of Glasgow during the last year : with statistical tables of the late epidemic, shewing the connection existing between poverty, disease, and crime / by Robt. Perry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    feT«r, cholera, djsenfcerj, or influenza, to malaria arising from decaying animal or vegetable substances, owing to the want of sewers for carrving off such substances, and the scanty sup- ply of water. There are perhaps few places better supplied with water than Gla>sgow ; and I have observed on more than one occa«;ion during the prevalence of malignant fever, that its progress was equally rapid and violent during a period of intense frost, when everything has been covered with snow, and the whole liquid substances in the streets firmly bound up for weeks together, without tlie possibility of any putrefac- tion going on. This was particulai ly the case in /837, when the frost continued very intense for upwards of six weeks, when the number of fever crises was greatest ; the something was observed at Moscow d; ring the prevalence of cholera. ^ appears that some epidemics are spread solely by means of infection ; tliese are specific poisons, generated in the bodies of those who are undergoing the disease, cUid spread either, by contact or bv the emanations from the l)odies of those affected by the specific disease. This is t]]e case with all tliat class of infectious fevers called exantheivatas ; as small-pox, mica- sles, scarlatina, and typhns. There are other epidem.ics which seem to depend on some peculiar state of the atmos- phere pre-dispovsing the bodies of those whose constitutions are weak to suffer under their influence, of wliich the present epidemic affords a good example, ''his brings us to the more practical part of the question ; viz., the causes which predispose persons to be affected by any prevailing epidemic : and in this enquiry very little difficulty presents itself, tl'ere are so many facts wliich attest that it is the poor and indigent part of the population who furnish the earliest and by far the greatest amount of victim.s. In bringing the state nnd sufTerings of the poor before those whose duty it is to watch over their welfare it is not my inten- tion to propose any theoretic plan of relief, but to state suclj. facts as have come under my ov7ri observation and the obser- vation of those who have had the very best opportunities of witnessing the miserable circumstances in which a great mass of our poor pr^pulation are situated. p.vA on whose testimony (given as it has been, without knowing what use was to be made of it) every reliance may be placed ; I mean the district surgeons. Most of those gentlemen at my request have kindly furnished me with excellent repoits of the state of the poor in the districts they attend. In a few cases I have failed ; whether from apathy in obtaining any statement I am not r^paredtosaj. lam certain these reports will be read with