Report on the cholera epidemic of 1866 in England : supplement to the twenty-ninth annual report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths, and marriages in England / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command.

  • Great Britain. General Register Office.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the cholera epidemic of 1866 in England : supplement to the twenty-ninth annual report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths, and marriages in England / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    36/436 (page 30)
    XXX- Hospitals, The first case of cholera in the London Hospital was admitted on the 10th July. The patient, a German woman, had come over from Holland as servant to a cattle- dealer on the 6th July ; she died on the 11th July. One case came in on the 13th, one on the 15th, two on the 17th, three on the 18th, four on the 19th, eight on the 20th. The numbers increased rapidly, and three wards with 138 beds were set apart for the reception of cholera patients. The largest number at one time in the hospital either for cholera or diarrhcea was 114. 509 cholera patients, strictly so called, were admitted in the seven weeks from 10th July to 30th August ; 281 died, and 228 recovered. The mortality of cases decreased week by week from 85 per cent, in the first to 37 per cent, in the seventh week.* For the purposes of reasoning on the liability of patients and attendants in the hospitals of other waterfields, I applied for information to the proper authorities who have kindly supplied the facts for the year 1866. Dr. Southey states that 136 cholera patients were treated in Bartholomew’s, where 44 died. The average number of patients in hospital were 550 ; two afflicted with cancer were attacked by cholera and died. The average number of nurses and other attendants was 105, of whom three were attacked and none died. The medical staff consisted of 22 persons; none died. Mr. Custance, secretary of Middlesex Hospital, states that 22 cholera patients were admitted, 10 died ; of 220 patients on an average resident, none were'attacked, none died; of 59 nurses and other attendants, none were attacked, none died ; so of the 27 medical and resident officers. Dr. Steele supplies an interesting experience of Guy’s Hospital. Fifty-five cholera patients were admitted and 25 died. Of 496 patients on an average none were attacked by cholera ; of 94 nurses and attendants one was attacked and died. The medical staff, consisting of six physicians and one resident medical officer, were all in occasional attendance; so were eight or ten students. In 1854 the cholera patients admitted were 92. Nineteen persons, including attendants and ordinary patients, were attacked by cholera in hospital ; of the total number of cholera cases 65 ended in death. An eminent member of the staff died of cholera. The hospital was supplied with the Southwark water which was impure in 1854 ; in the year 1866, and for the last 10 years, it has obtained water from an artesian well. 7. Rise and Decline of Cholera. Cholera in an individual man goes commonly through a regular series of develop- ment; commences with diarrhoea, grows hourly more violent until the crisis is past, and then, if death intervene not, subsides slowly in consecutive fever, lingering a single instance of cholera in the hospital, except those who were brought in as affected by the disease. Q. 641. But none of the ordinary inmates of the hospital were affected by cholera ?—Not one. Q. 642. And not one of the attendants ?—Not one. In the hospital I think there were about 487 people residing, excluding the cholera patients, and they were all taking the water exactly as it is delivered from the main, without any filtering process whatever, and not a single instance of -cholera occurred. Dr. Letheby gave similar evidence before the Eoyal Commission on Water Supply. The following extract is from the Clinical Lectures and Eeports by the Medical and Surgical Staff of the London Hospital, Vol. III., 1866, pp. 460-462. The paper is by Mr. Bathurst Dove, and it is entitled “ Notes of Six Cases of Cholera which OCCURRED in Nurses or Inmates of the Hospital. The second paragraph gives a summary of the results : “ Out of somewhat under 130 persons engaged in attending the cholera patients, and washing “ the sheeting, &c. from the cholera wards, seven were attack^ by cholera, of these five died. In “ addition, one patient, a child, occupying a room adjoining one in which there were cholera cases, « died of it. Three others had tolerably severe diarrhoea, and one had an attack of pain in the “ abdomen, with cramps in the legs, without diarrhoea.” * Dr. Jackson, pp. 436-7 of Hospital Eeport