Dr. Parsons's report to the local government board on scarlet fever in the Huntingdon registration district.

  • Parsons, H. Franklin.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Parsons's report to the local government board on scarlet fever in the Huntingdon registration district. 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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    and shut in by buildings, contained a wooden cesspit-privy and a huge heap of ashes and decaying vegetables. The occupier stated that the privy was emptied once a year; that when this was done, the ashes were first of all got out and spread upon the surface of the yard, that the privy contents were then ladled out and mixed with them, and that the mixture had to be allowed to remain for two or three weeks to “ set ” before it could be removed, it having to be carried through the house. In a very filthy courtyard at Duck End, in which a number of cases of scarlet fever have occurred, the middenstead was full of refuse which was also littered about around it. A woman was seen to throw on it the contents of a chamber vessel, which ran off the piled-up heap mingling with the dust of the unpaved surface, doubt- less, when dry, to be carried with it into the houses. When we consider that the water with which the skin and clothes of a scarlet fever patient have been washed, and perhaps his liquid discharges, are impregnated with the specific poison, it is evident that conditions such as those described must greatly favour the dissemination of the disease. III. Huntingdon Rural District.—This district had up to the time of inspec- tion been almost free from scarlet fever, cases being known to have occurred during 1880 in only about seven households, into most of which it was known to have been imported from other districts. The case at Sapley in February has been previously mentioned. A case occurred in July at G-reat Stukeley, the boy had attended a day school in Huntingdon. Another boy at Little Stukeley was just convalescent at the time of inspection ; he used to drive a horse and cart, and had been frequently in Huntingdon before his illness. Two cases were imported into Alconbury, one (fatal) an apprentice, having been sent home ill from Godmanchester; the other, a servant, by rail from London, both from houses in which other cases of scarlet fever had occurred. In neither case were proceedings taken by the Rural Sanitary Authority under § 126 of the Public Health Act. Scarlet fever also occurred in May in two families at Brampton; the fathers of both had worked in Huntingdon, but the children attended a dame’s school in Brampton. There had been previously in Brampton some slight cases of a disorder which was spoken of as measles, but may perhaps have been a mild form of scarlet fever. It is hardly necessary in this report to speak of the sanitary condition of the few places visited in the rural district, for although in some cases sanitary defects were noted, there is nothing to show that these defects had any effect in propagating the disease or increasing its severity. Mention however may be made of the scantiness and inferior quality of the water supply of the villages on the clay. There are no springs, and wells yield little water and that so impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen as to be unfit for most uses. Ponds fed by the surface soakings are the source of supply. The water is muddy, contaminated by decaying vegetable matter and probably sometimes by the droppings of cattle. The storage of rain water in underground cisterns would meet the case, but the fact of many of the cottages having thatch roofs interposes a difficulty in the way of collection. Sanitary Administration. I. Huntingdon Urban District.—Sanitary affairs are managed by a committee of the Town Council who have no regular time of meeting, but are called together when there is any business to transact. The Town Council have some byelaws, made in 1853, but these relate only to obstructions and misdemeanors in highways, such as are dealt with by the Towns Police Clauses Act. The only byelaw relating to the removal of refuse is one which forbids the carrying of excrement through the streets between the hours of 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. There are no byelaws relating to new buildings, common lodging-houses, or slaughter-houses. In 1878 the Town Council submitted to the Local Government Board for approval a draft code of byelaws stated to have been compiled from those in force in other places of a similar character. These were considered open to objection on various grounds, and the Board recommended that the Model Byelaws should be adopted in their place. The Town Council however considered the model byelaws too stringent and intricate for the requirements of so small a