Dr. Parson's report to the local government board on the prevalence of typhoid fever in the borough of Haverfordwest, and on the general sanitary condition of the borough.

Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Parson's report to the local government board on the prevalence of typhoid fever in the borough of Haverfordwest, and on the general sanitary condition of the borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Dr. Parsons’s Report to the Local Government Board on the prevalence of Typhoid Fever in the borough of Haver- fordwest, and on the general Sanitary Condition of the Borough. George Buchanan, Medical Department, April 15, 1881. Haverfordwest, the county town of Pembrokeshire, is situated on the West Oleddau river at the point where it commences to be tidal some 5 or 6 miles above its junction with the East Cleddau at the head of Milford Haven. A few coasting vessels of small tonnage ascend the river to Haverfordwest as far as the lower bridge. The river divides the town into two portions, connected however by two bridges. The portion on the north-east or left bank of the river, and comprising the suburbs of Cartlett and Prendergast, is comparatively small. The mainpart of the town lies to the south-west of the river, occupying a steep site, with a general slope to the N.E., but cut into at right angles by the valleys of two or three small streams. The castle stands on a bold projection between the main valley and two of the sub- sidiary valleys. The geological formation is the Lower Llandovery rock, a sandy shale or rubbly sandstone of Silurian age, locally termed “ rab.” The strata, which are highly inclined or vertical, are crossed by numerous joints and fissures, and abound in springs. At the sides and bottom of the valley the rock crops out on the surface, but on the plateau above the town it is covered by a bed of stiff clay, and a little further to the south-west is shown by the map of the Geological Survey to be capped by the millstone grit. The plan of the town is irregular, and in the central part the houses are very much crowded together, some having no open space whatever belonging to them, and many very little, and that surrounded by high buildings and capable of access only through the house. There are no manufactures : the inhabitants belong to the classes usually resident in the county and market town of an agricultural district. The population of the borough was 6,622 in 1871, and is not likely to have increased since then. The area^of the borough is 1,700 acres; it comprises portions of 6 different parishes, other portions of which are outside the borough limits. It forms a part only of the Haverfordwest registration sub-district, in the district of the same name. Hence statistics of births and deaths in the borough cannot be obtained from the Begistrar General’s returns, and there are no local sources of information available. Typhoid Fever.—It is stated that before the epidemic which forms the subject of the present report typhoid fever had not often been prevalent in Haverfordwest. The returns of the Begistrar General show, however, that in the Haverfordwest sub-district, with a population of 11,408, 58 deaths from “ fever ” occurred in the 10 years 1870-9, and it is probable that the borough of Haverfordwest, in which more than half of the inhabitants of the sub- district reside, bore its share of this mortality. An outbreak of typhoid fever in the borough of Haverfordwest, causing 7 deaths, occurred in 1871 and 1872, and occasioned some correspondence between the Local Govern- ment Board and the Town Council. Little light however was thrown upon the causes of the outbreak. Another outbreak occurred in the winter of 1874-75. During the first three quarters of 1879 there were no deaths from fever in the sub-district, but in the last quarter of that year 4 deaths occurred, two of which were in the urban district, and in the first quarter of 1880, 3 deaths, one of them in the urban district. Altogether 7 cases of fever were heard of as having occurred in the urban district in the winter of 1879-80. The two earliest of these occurred in separate localities, and were apparently unconnected with any other cases, or with each other. One was a boy who had not long come into the district; another, a revenue officer, whose duties frequently took him to other towns and villages in the neighbourhood, in which fever had heen prevalent for some time previously. Of the other cases 4 occurred at Albert Town, an outlying row of cottages in an elevated open situation about a mile and a half west of the town. The first of the cases at Albert Town had come home ill from a place in the rural district: the others had probably visited at the house when he was siek. These cottages are small and somewhat overcrowded. They have no drainage, Q 5019. 100.—4/81. Wt. 18513. E. & S. A