Observations on foul water irrigation : founded on a personal survey of different districts of the city, and an examination of their comparative salubrity, being a reply to certain statements made at a meeting of the Town-Council on the 2d April, 1839 / by William Tait.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on foul water irrigation : founded on a personal survey of different districts of the city, and an examination of their comparative salubrity, being a reply to certain statements made at a meeting of the Town-Council on the 2d April, 1839 / by William Tait. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    verely from its effects ; vvlillst those at a distance, such, for example, Potterrow, Buccleuch Street, and Causewayside, must be nearly exempt from it. We do not, however, find this to be in accordance with facts. In our survey of these districts, wo find, that in 964 families, which, if averaged at five members each, would amount to 4820 individuals, dwelling in the two districts to the east and west of the city, there has occurred, since January 1838, 90 cases of fever, out of wliich number 10 died. In the southern district, including Potterrow, Bristo Street, and all closes between these, Chapel Street, Wester Crosscauseway, Buccleuch Street, Hope Park End, Gifford Park, Sciennes, and West Causewayside, in 853 families, or population of 4275, we found that there had occurred, within the same period, 91 cases of fever, of which 16 proved fatal—thus showing, that the south side is more unfavourable to health than the neighbourhood of the irrigated lands; and tiiat fever, when it does occur, takes a more unfavourable form. So tar as we have been enabled to form an opinion of that district extending from St. Wary’s Wynd to Niddry Street, including all the closes between High Street and Cowgate, the proportion of fever cases, according to the num- ber of the inhabitants, is considerably above that of the other districts, and the proportion of deaths also greater. In making these surveys and calculations, we do not pretend to per- fect accuracy.* The method pursued by us, in our investigations, was to call upon one person in a stair, and, after inquiring the time she had resided there, we put the necessary questions relative to the health of her own famaily, and then of the other families in the stair with whom she was acquainted ; and did any dwell there of whose circum- stances she was ignorant, we waited upon that family and interrogated them ourselves. Whenever we heard from others of fever having occurred in any particular land, we were still more careful about our inquiries, and visited it personally, entering in our note case the kind of fever, the age and sex of the patients, the number of the same family affected with it, the result or termination of the case or cases, with any observations on the locality, or circumstances of the patients, which we considered worth recording. In the suburbs, the task of acquiring information was by no means difficult, as all that was wanted might be acquired from one person in a stair, or from a small shopkeeper at the bottom of it, who was generally found to know all that was going on for a considerable dis- tance around. In the centre of the town the task is very arduous and unsatisfactory. The families in every flat have to be waited upon sepa- rately, as no one almost can give any account of his neighbour, many of them changing every few weeks, and few remaining over a twelvemonth. • Since the above was w'litfen, we have, through the'kindness of Mr. Pateison, the surveyor, been permitted to examine Ids books, and compare them with the results of our survey ; and although there is a slight diflerence in the number of families, amounting to about 7 per cent, on the whole, it is not so great as to aflect materially the force of our argument.