Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon the prevalence of diphtheria and croup in the registration sub-district of Pontypridd, and upon the sanitary condition and administration of the sanitary areas therein contained.

  • Spear, John.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon the prevalence of diphtheria and croup in the registration sub-district of Pontypridd, and upon the sanitary condition and administration of the sanitary areas therein contained. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The larger villages above mentioned likewise require attention in respect of their water supplies. At Nantygarrw the people have to go a long distance to a roadside spout, unless, as sometimes happens, they resort to the polluted river. At Tongwinlas similar difficulty is experienced; at TafFs Well, surface wells, sunk in a contaminated soil, aie in use. TThe Llantrissant and Cymmer divisions of the Rural Sanitary District are not within the Registration Sub-district with which this inquiry is mainly concerned. I conferred, however, with the Medical Officers of Health, and visited certain of the villages in this part of the district. The (Sanitary Authority (of the Pontypridd Rural District) have pro¬ vided a sewer for parts of the village of Llantrissant, and two standpipes for the supply of water to that village. They have recently also provided a water supply for Cross Inn. The removal of house refuse from populous parts of the Llantrissant division is undertaken by the Authority. Beyond this, much action in the direction already indicated for other divisions of the district is evidently needed. The standpipes for Llantrissant are insufficient for the supply of the whole village, and the local wells in use are liable to pollution. The public sewer there is practically unventilated, two or three 4-inch shafts only being provided. The private drainage is most defective. Old stone drains are largely in use ; gullies are dilapidated; drains in some cases pass beneath houses, and there are in some cases direct connexions with the public sewer within houses. Privy pits that are the source of much nuisance exist here and in many other places, and where pail closets have been introduced the emptying is left to occupiers and is accord¬ ingly neglected. At Beadow, a little hamlet of some 30 houses, near Llan¬ trissant, the inhabitants have to go nearly half a mile to obtain their drinking water. There is much accumulation of refuse in this village also. At Grilfach Groch, in the Cymmer Division, a serious outbreak of enteric fever in 1886 was attributed by the Medical Officer of Health to a defective water supply, bad drainage, and imperfect cleansing of pail closets. The defective water supply and drainage of this place has since been the subject of correspondence between the Board and the Sanitary Authority, but no action has followed.] In none of the divisions is there a properly organised method of adminis¬ tering sanitary affairs, or of ensuring that the many and various conditions injurious to health are brought in detail to the knowledge of the Sanitary Authority. The Medical Officers of Health never attend the meetings of the Sanitary Authority, and their representations are confined to their annual reports. Copies of these documents are before the Board. Except as regards the reports from the Caerphilly district, they have each, on one or more occa¬ sions, formed the subject of remonstrance from the Board, on account of the paucity of the information they contain. Systematic inspections, which the Board regard as of so great importance, are not made. There is little official communication between the Medical Officers of Health and the Inspector of Nuisances, and no joint inspection. There are practically no means of dealing with infectious disease other than the Medical Officers of Health might pre¬ scribe as private practitioners. Except for occasional report by the Inspector of Nuisances, individual conditions injurious to health are not, as I have said, brought before the Sanitary Authority ; byelaws are not fully enforced— neither the byelaws regulating building, nor those for the prevention of nuisances, nor those that relate to the keeping of animals, or to lodging- houses. Dairies and cowsheds are not registered or regulated; the business of slaughtering is not regulated; the keeping of lodgers in houses other than common lodging-houses is subject to practically no restriction. What is wanted in this rural district is one Medical Officer of Health, whose salary should repay the expenditure of time and labour in sanitary organisation and supervision, and who should have under his direction an efficient staff of Inspectors of Nuisances. At present the single Inspector of Nuisances is engaged also as surveyor, engineer, superintendent of the scavenging contractors, and collector of water rates in districts where the Sanitary Authority have the water supply under their own control. The