Dr. S.W. Wheaton's report to the Local Government Board on enteric fever among hop pickers in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in 1909.

  • Wheaton, S.W. (Samuel Walton)
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. S.W. Wheaton's report to the Local Government Board on enteric fever among hop pickers in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in 1909. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    21UL 11 it is possible that sbe may have been still infectious after the first attack, if this was a genuine attack of enteric fever, and that she either may have been the means of infecting the water of the farmhouse well or may have spread the disease by personal contagion in the stable which she occupied together with other Dudley people. I was able to trace only two cases of enteric fever among persons who had been at the neighbouring Great House Farm. These were in Rowley Regis Urban District, and the mode in which they contracted the infection is doubtful. Although as before described the water supply was very unsatisfactory, the presumption is that infection occurred from the same source as at the Pigeon House Farm, or from personal contact with the people at this farm or in the hop-yards. No enteric fever has been notified in the Hartley Rural District during the year, and no illness resembling this fever is known to have occurred except among the pickers at these farms. Measures taken by the Dudley Borough Council and the Urban District Councils of Rowley Regis and Stour- bridge for Preventing the Spread of Enteric Fever. All the patients were, with one exception in Dudley Borough, removed to hospital, in most cases promptly. Disinfection of the invaded premises, of the infected clothing and bedding, the removal of the contents of privies, and the flushing of drains, were carried out, together with supervision of contacts. The authorities concerned recognised the danger of the spread of infection among the crowded homes of the labouring classes in which the cases occurred, and to the prompt measures taken may well be attributed the almost complete absence of spread of the infection in the homes invaded, the circumstances of which were eminently conducive to the further propagation of the disease. Neither the Dudley Borough Council nor the Rowley Regis Urban District Council has provided hospital accommodation for persons suffering from infectious diseases other than small- pox. In both districts buildings erected for small-pox cases had to be used. These were built many years ago, had been paid for out of current rates, and the plans had not been approved by the Board. The Dudley Hospital is a one-storey brick cottage with three rooms used as wards, a kitchen, a wash-house, bathroom, and water closet, all under the same roof. At the time of my visit the three rooms were occupied by fourteen patients suffering from enteric fever. The amount of air space and floor space per bed was only about one-quarter of that required by the Board for hospitals of this description. One trained nurse and her husband, who had been an hospital orderly, with two untrained assistants, were in charge of the patients. There is an ambulance and a Thresh’s steam disinfector. At Rowley Regis the sufferers were treated in an old wooden building situate at Tividale. It has a very dilapidated appear- ance externally, but the inside is in a fair state of repair. There are three intercommunicating wTards, a caretaker’s room, a kitchen, and a small surgery, all under the same roof. One