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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    among per¬ sons drinking water of Bath Lane spout exposed to pollution by sewage infected by the exc?eta of the first case. January 1st. This boy had not been so far as known in communication with the previous case at the top of the road. The Sotons’ cottage, however, is not drained into the road sewer, but into a drain at the back. This drain is of very imperfect construction, full of sediment, and often blocked: it also receives the contents of the privy into which, up to January 1st, the boy’s excreta were thrown. After the nature of his illness was recognised, the excreta were by the advice of the medical attendant disinfected and buried in the earth. As before mentioned the water supply of Church End is almost wholly obtained from the Bath Lane spout. This is a copious stream of water running some 10 gallons per minute, which, coming from a spring in the hill¬ side above, is brought down, first in a rubble stone conduit, and then in one of socket pipes, to the iron spout from which it issues. (See annexed plan.) The spout itself is just within the borough, at the junction of Gawcott Road, Bath Lane, and Mitre Street, but the spring and the conduit are in the Rural District. Some 50 feet above the spout the line of the conduit is crossed, as shown at B. in the plan, by the drain lately mentioned: this drain has at this point received the sewage of eight houses (including Soton’s, in which the first case of fever occurred) ; the privies, which are of very rude construction, are connected with it, and into one of them a small stream of water from a spring is led with the view to wash away the excreta. The drain, which occupies the course of an old ditch, has been laid in the greater part of its course only with common field pipes: it was, I saw, so constructed in the neighbourhood of the conduit, where the joints between the pipes gaped widely and the dram was half full of black sediment. Immediately over the course of the conduit was a small catchpit- inlet with bottom of bare earth. Just below where it crosses the conduit the drain runs through a larger catchpit on a different property, and it is said that here it was sometimes intentionally stopped, owing to neighbourly disputes, with the result of causing sewage to well out from the drain higher up. Whether this happened or not, leakage of sewage from the drain could not help taking place, and, as I saw, the earth indwhich the water-pipes were lying beneath the drain was black, foetid, and sewage-sodden. The joints of the water-pipes nearest the drain had been luted with mortar, but on plugging the conduit below, a stream of water issued from one of them, where a bend had been made by inserting one pipe obliquely in the socket of another. This particular leakage indeed may*have been due to a crack made in uncovering the pipes, but at any rate the third joint below the crossing of the drain, and others below it, were not luted, and here ground water (and worse) could enter the conduit, which in fact would drain the soil in the same way as an agricultural drain.* There is therefore good reason to believe that sewage leaked out of the drain, and found its way into the drinking water. The amount so entering would no doubt be very small relatively to the volume of the stream of water, and hence slight pollution may probably have been going on for a consider¬ able time, but escaped notice until the sewage happened to become infected with the fever poison, and then an extensive outbreak of fever among the drinkers of the water was the result. Hence in my opinion this outbreak is to be classed with those which have been recorded, e.g. at Caterhamj* and Bangor,J resulting from the entrance of a relatively minute quantity of specific fever poison into a water of pure origin. The water has hitherto borne a high reputation, and at its source in the hillside can hardly be anywise polluted. Analyses made recently by the borough analyst led to its being classed as a first-class water, and showed scarcely any excess of foreign constituents above the water of another spring in the same hillside. (See Appendix.) On these grounds there was in some quarters a disinclination to admit that the water could have had any share in the production of the fever ; but it has been shown by the instances referred to, that typhoid fever may be produced by drinking water containing * There was also near the conduit a privy with cesspit, which at a later stage received typhoid excreta. | Annual report of medical officer to Local Government Board, 1879. Do, do. do. • 1882.