Reports and papers on cholera in England in 1893 / with an introduction by the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board.

  • Great Britain. Local Government Board.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports and papers on cholera in England in 1893 / with an introduction by the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    the spread of an infection which had by that time had ample opportunity for diffusion. The true character of this early diarrhoea was later on significantly illustrated, when “ infective diarrhoea ” spread amongst the shipping in two of the docks in sequence to the occurrence of illness on board a vessel which was certified to be infected with “ cholera.” In dealing with the local conditions which in Grimsby may have served to facilitate the spread of cholera when once introduced, Dr. Reece is able to eliminate the public water service; but he attaches importance to the influence of the faulty conditions of sewerage and drainage. Indeed, in Grimsby one of the advantages usually claimed for the “ water carriage ” system, namely, that of the rapid removal of excreta from the proximity of dwellings, is to a large extent frustrated. This result is mainly due to a practice by which so-called “ cesspools ” are constructed along the line of the house drains, in such a way that solid filth and refuse are retained on or near domestic pre- mises instead of being carried away to and by the sewers ; and, incidentally, there ensue local nuisances from foul effluvia, and not unfrequently soakage of filth, including specific filth, into the superficial soil. Such conditions, when coupled with the damming back of sewage in the sewers by tidal action for a large part of each 24 hours, are precisely of a kind which have commonly been associated elsewhere with excessive prevalence of filth disease ” ; and, apart from the cholera and diarrhoea already referred to, it is nofie worthy that during the period July 29th to November 4th, 1893, no less than 260 cases of enteric fever, with 41 deaths, were recorded in Grimsby. The distnbu- tion in Grimsby of 127 attacks of cholera, choleraic diarrhoea, and cholera nostras, and of 326 cases of enteric fever during 1893, as also of 451 attacks of “ diarrhoea ” in the single week, September 6th-12th, is shown by Dr. Reece in a series of charts. The tendency of these three filth diseases to especially affect the same localities deserves the careful attention of the Local Sanitary Authority. The Grimsby sewage is ultimately discharged by means of two outfalls, under circumstances which admit of its being washed back over oyster, mussel, and cockle beds. To this disposal of the sewage in connexion with the cultivation of shell fish, and its possible relation to the diffusion of cholera, I shall refer again. (&.) Hull. On the 24th August a first case of cholera was recognised in Hull. This case, which terminated fatally, was clinically one of a very suspicious character; moreover, the materials examined-gave unequivocal bacteriological indications of true cholera. The previous history of the patient, a boy of 11 years of age, afforded no actual proof as to the source of the infection; ,but it is known that he sickened 16 hours after swallowing some exceptionally foul water in which he was bathing, and that of six of his fellow bathers, no less than five suffered frpm,nausea, or vomiting, or diarrhoea. The water in