A letter to the vestry of St. George's, Hanover Square, on sanitary work and experience in Belgravia / by C.J.B. Aldis.

  • Aldis, C. J. B. (Charles James Berridge), 1808-1872.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the vestry of St. George's, Hanover Square, on sanitary work and experience in Belgravia / by C.J.B. Aldis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    in which it appeared “ that we had been actively engaged in communicating with various public authorities and private individuals, for the sake of obtaining information systema- tically as to the health of the Parish.” The results of the hlortuarj' Registers were then exhibited with the machinery by which, after having visited every public parochial school in the Parish, information might be collected as to the preva- lence of sickness. Another complaint, which I noticed in a letter to Mr. Richman, dated May 12, 1867, was of a very painful nature. I was attending a poor man named Harper, residing at No. 6, Commercial Road South, who was in the last stage of consumption. Fever broke out in three of his children, and it also appeared in several other children who resided in the same row of houses. The fever was of a remit- tent character, accompanied by symptoms of ulceration of the intestines, for one of the children was admitted into St. George’s Hospital, under the care of Dr. Wilson, and I read an account of the post-mortem examination in the Hospital Register, wherein it appeared that ulceration of the bowels was detected. And now let me digress a moment to speak of the awful consequences of fever, which is likely to attack either the brain or lungs, or, as in this fatal case, the intestines, by eating into them, and in some cases actually eating through them; so that fever is not a mere matter of increased heat and thirst, but even without any organic change may destroy life; and it w6uld be well for many in the present day who follow unwholesome trades, being led on by the thirst of gain, to reflect that they have no right to poison a neighbourhood, and thus to swell out its mortality. Fever also attacks the young and strong, the young husband or the young wife, increases the poor-rate, like all zymotic diseases, one of which—cholera —cost this Parish £1600 in six months.