Dr. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on a recent outbreak of enteric fever in the borough of Buckingham / [H. Franklin Parsons].

  • Parsons, H. Franklin (Henry Franklin), 1846-1913.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on a recent outbreak of enteric fever in the borough of Buckingham / [H. Franklin Parsons]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Dr. Parsons’s Report to the Local Government Board on a recent outbreak of Enteric Fever in the Borough of Buckingham. George Buchanan, Medical Department, June 8th, 1888. In the latter part of March 1888, information reached the Local Govern¬ ment Board from several sources of a somewhat extensive outbreak of fever in the borough of Buckingham, and I was instructed to inquire into its cause. On visiting the town on April 3rd I found that from the beginning of the year up to that date about 114 cases of fever had occurred, in 49 house¬ holds,* and with, so far. five deaths, including one which took place after removal of the patient to another district. The majority of these cases, though not of the deaths, occurred in an • outlying quarter of the borough called Church End ; the remainder chiefly in the more central parts of the town: the outbreak at Church End differing from that in the remainder of the borough, in incidence, in character, and probably in cause. The parish church, Market Square, and principal streets of Buckingham General stand on a hill which is surrounded on three sides, viz., N.W., S.W., and S.E., <lescnPtl0U- by the river Ouse, forming an oblong peninsula. On the N.E. a long wide street, North End, stretches away from the Market Square. The other streets mostly descend the hill towards the river and are narrow and crooked. The quarter called Church End (which, however, is not near the church) lies to the S.W. of the town on the other side of the river, and consists principally of three streets—Mitre Street, Bath Lane, and Gawcott Road—which meet at one point. Of the last named street, one side is out of the borough, being in the parish of Radclive in the Buckingham Rural Sanitary District, but except as regards administration it is practically a part of the town. The population of Buckingham in 1881 was 3,585, of which about 3,000 are in the town proper, the remainder in outlying hamlets: it is believed to be stationary as regards • numbers. The inhabitants are employed in the usual professional, commercial, and industrial avocations of an agricultural market town ; there are no manufactures, and there is said to be at present a good deal of poverty. There are a good many old cottages which are badly built, ill-ventilated, Dwellings, dilapidated, and too small for the families which inhabit them ; many of those at Church End are of this class. Some of the houses have little external space belonging to them ; and some indeed have none at all, and this not only in the centre of the town, but also in outlying lanes, where cottages have been built on strips of waste land by the roadsides. The sites of some of the * Including 22 cases in six households in a portion of the Buckingham Rural District closely adjoining the town. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE, BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. And to be purchased, either directly or through any Bookseller, from EYRE and SPOTTISWOODE, East Harding Street, Flep:t Street, E.C.; or ADAM and CHARLES BLACK, 6, North Bridge, Edinbdrgh ; or, HODGES, FIGGIS, & Co., 104, Grafton Street, Dublin. 3. K UtBRARY No. 25. 1888. Price Qd.