Report by Professor W.J. Simpson on sanitary matters in various West African colonies and the outbreak of plague in the Gold Coast.

  • Simpson, W. J. (William John), Sir, 1855-1931.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report by Professor W.J. Simpson on sanitary matters in various West African colonies and the outbreak of plague in the Gold Coast. 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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    Some of the fish is kept in large covered calabashes, which is a very sensible way of protecting them from Hies. It is very important that the conditions under which the fish and meat are sold should be regularly and carefully supervised. The supply of good fish is one of the features of the coast towns, but much of it is rendered unfit for human consumption in the markets. Fresh fish is unobtainable up country, and there the fowl, stewed and roasted, has to be supplemented by tinned foods. The fresh meat in the markets, though perhaps a little tough, would be wholesome and nourishing if it were sold under more cleanly conditions and carefully inspected and would displace in many places with advantage the imported meat from the ships, because in all the Gold Coast towns except Sekondi this imported meat has to depend for its preservation on the ice supplied also from the ship to replenish the ice chest. The ice frequently runs short and the meat decomposes. Tainted meat and tainted fish are very common causes of dysenteric diarrlioea among l*]uropeans on the Gold Coast, The ice, even with the most careful attention, does not last more than a few days, and in the smaller towns such as Saltpond the ice landed with the meat at CajDe Coast has not infrequently melted by the time it arrives at its destination. The difficulties connected with the supply of ice are felt in the hospitals. There is no apparatus on the Gold Coast except Sekondi for making ice, and as a consequence patients suffering from a high temperatui-e cannot be ice-packed and the usual comforts of other tropical z'egions in regard to cooling drinks and the keeping of food fresh are conspicuous by their absence. Besides no ice factories there are no good factories for making soda water or other asi'ated drinks such as are common in other tropical countries. The result is that every- thing has to lie brought in froin abroad at a liigh cost, French and German aerated waters such as Perrier, Sauerbrunnen, and Teplitz being more or less generally used. Housing. ITonslnfi in the Native town. (6) The houses in the native town are generally of the most primitive type, which, in itself, need not be unhealthy, if regulated. There are no type or standard plans of healthy huts to guide the builder, and beyond a few good streets constructed after a large fire some yeai's ago and the alignment Avhich these streets give to the huts and houses facing them, there is no orderly arrangement. In Jamestown and Usshertown the irregularity of the huts and houses in the interior of blocks between the streets miglit be likened to that formed if a cart load of bricks were o\'erturned so that each brick would be on the ground. The general features of these blocks are :— 1. The irregularity of the huts and houses in relation to streets and to one another. 2. The erection of huts or houses close up behind those that do face a street and the narrow entrance passages. P). The dilapidated condition of large numbers of houses. Some are too dilapidated or in too ruinous a state to be inhabited. ^t. The primitive and unregulated structure of the houses or huts. Some have thatched roofs, oth(jrs have corrugated iron, but so crudely fixed that they often require large stones to keep them in position. Some have good plinths of cement and concrete while others have no plinth at all. Some are constructed of stone but the majority of mud. 5. The defective ventilation of the houses by reason of their closeness together is very defective quite apart from the structural internal arrangement of the I'ooms of the hut or house itself, which renders them dark, (). The insanitary condition of the open spaces. There are often large open spaces between the clusters of huts, but the advantage of these open spaces, which have sometimes been formed by the falling down of mud huts during the rains, is annulled by the close grouping of the huts in relation to one another, and the open spaces themselves, by the uneveniiess of the ground, become breeding places for mosquitoes. Photos, 4 to 14. A sfrag;/!/)/'/ congerie-'^ of huts, houses, and shanties. (7) With the exception of a few good streets Jamestown and Ussher Town consist of a straggling congeries of huts, houses, and shanties huddled together and of of)en spaces with irregular heaps or mounds in them, the remains of huts which have fallen down and the earth of which has not been cleared awav. These ruins become the refuge of rats or snakes and breeding places for mosquitoes during the rain.