Reports on the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Scotland : in consequence of an inquiry directed to be made by the Poor Law Commission.

  • Great Britain. Poor Law Commission.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports on the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Scotland : in consequence of an inquiry directed to be made by the Poor Law Commission. 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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    were met with. During the summer last past only a few cases of fever occurred in the district of which I have the medical chart^e; but I may cite one as showing the connexion between the disease and those common and constantly acting sources of contao-ion which it is the object of sanitary regulations to abate. The patient's apartment, iu the instance now alluded to, was in a confined back court into which its only window opened, and in which were two or three pigsties and dunghills, besides a pool in which varieties of Uquid and other filth were deposited and left to stagnate. The corrupted atmosphere, from these accumulations, necessarily pervaded the surrounding tenements; yet, notwith- standing the obvious danger to the neighbourhood from the ex- tension of disease under such circumstances, I believe, with the present imperfect powers lodged in the local authorities, it would be found almost impossible to carry into eflfect such measures of sanitary police as should suffice to overcome those sources of contagious disease. In the spring of 1838, on witnessing the great prevalence of fever, and the difficulty of imposing a check to its progress, I published a letter in the Herald newspaper of this town, stating the need of a Fever Board, or of the adoption of some measure to protect the community from invasion of the disease. A copy of that letter, as conveying ray impressions at the time, I here- wdth take the liberty to subjoin :— Typhus Fever.—Need of a Fever Board in Dumfries. There is no disease more justly to be dreaded than typhus fever, and none which, in this country, inflicts such extensive calamity. Others there are which occasionally break forth, and produce a greater and more immediate panic ; but their visitation is, in general, short, and recurring only at distant intervals. Typhus, however, is a com- mon and a constant foe, lurking, sometimes hid, yet ever ready to be roused into action, and to start on its insidious and fatal march. The sum of mortality of which it is productive is infinitely greater than that arising from the most fatal epidemic maladies, not excluding even the malignant cholera. Any one to whom this statement may occasion surprise need only consult the official medical reports, and bills of mortality, for our larger cities; or turn to the pages of anv traveller who has written on Ireland, and in the pictures of misery and death which they contain, he will find ample evidence to satisfy him of its truth. To a great portion of the public the statistical facts, re- garding the prevalence and fatality of typhus, are but slightly known, and little apprehension or sympathy is excited, only because the magnitude of the evil has not come emphatically under their own observation. For the last twelve or fifteen months typhus fever has prevailed in many cities and towns of the kingdom to an unusual extent, and without almost any check from atmospheric vicissitudes, being nearly as severe in summer as in winter. In London, Edinburgh, Greenock, Inverness, and Glasgow, the ravages of the disease were particularly marked; and in the city last named, the infirmary was