Dr. W. Ogle's report to the Local Government Board on the prevalence of diphtheria in the rural sanitary district of Barnstaple.

  • Ogle, W.
Date:
1879
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. W. Ogle's report to the Local Government Board on the prevalence of diphtheria in the rural sanitary district of Barnstaple. 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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    Dr. W. Ogle’s Report to the Local Government Board on an Outbreak of Diphtheria in the Rural Sanitary District of Barnstaple. George Buchanan, Assistant Medical Officer, June 12, 1879. In accordance with the instructions given me by the Local Government Board, that I should enquire into the circumstances under which six deaths from diphtheria had been registered as having occurred in the Barnstaple Rural District during the fourth quarter of 1878, I visited that district on May 7th, and beg to make the following report: On the southern outskirts of the rural parish of Swimbridge, and at an average distance of more than two miles from the village of Swimbridge, some 30 or more cottages and farmhouses, here and there in small groups, but often quite isolated, are scattered over a considerable area of elevated ground. Owing to the distance from the village, a small school has been provided for the separate use of this outlying district at a point somewhere near its centre, known as Traveller’s Rest and Cobbaton. The outbreak of diphtheria which led to this enquiry was entirely confined to this small scattered community; and was not only thus circumscribed in area, but was also limited to a very short space of time, the whole period from the first to the last discoverable case having been scarcely more than one month, viz., from the first week in October to the end of the first week in November. Most of the cottages in this Cobbaton district were visited and inspected by me. Some of them are, doubtless, poor enough places; here and there with an old broken-up stone floor; or with an objectionable kind of privy ; or with a pigsty in unsavoury proximity to the dwelling, or, in one instance, to the well. But still, taking them as a whole, I cannot say that on an average they are inferior to the general run of labourer’s cottages in other places, or that the nuisances noticed by me were of an exceptional nature or amount. I was, however, informed by both the Medical Officer of Health and by the Inspector of Nuisances, that the condition of things had been very different at the time of the outbreak, some six months earlier than my visit; that there had then been a very large proportion of privies ill-constructed and in a filthy state; large dung-heaps of abominably offensive character; and among the wells in use two with obviously polluted water. At the time, however, of my visit, these nuisances had been mostly dealt with; the two wells were not in use ; in many instances movable receptacles had been substituted for the foul privies, and the dung-heaps had been carted away. The place, in fact, as already said, had been brought to an average condition of cleanliness. Under these circumstances, it was impossible for me to form any distinct opinion as to the amount of unhealthiness that might have been fairly attributable to nuisances, of which I had no ocular evidence. I may, however, say that the Medical Officer of Health attributes the origin of the diphtheria to these now abated nuisances, and it is evident that whether they were or were not the original cause of the late outbreak, they were at any rate nuisances which had been of long standing, were such as to be dangerous to health, and such as ought not to have been so long in existence. The Medical Officer of Health, in his Annual Report for 1876, recommended that a house-to- house inspection of this portion of the Barnstaple Rural District should be made. Had that recommendation been duly carried out, the nuisances to which he now attributes this outbreak would not have escaped notice, as they appear to have done. Previously to the recent outbreak there had been no diphtheria in the Uobbaton district for many years. I was informed by a person who had a A1 116. 100.—6779. Wt. 2736. E. & S.