A practical sketch of the Asiatic cholera of 1848 : its rationale and (presumed) pathology / by S.F. Statham.

Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical sketch of the Asiatic cholera of 1848 : its rationale and (presumed) pathology / by S.F. Statham. 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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    outlet, for in many instances. cesspools arc made use of and emptied at intervals. The houses are often badly situated and worse built, and here a great difference is observable. Out of a number for which the same or nearly the same rent is paid, some are airy, dry and clean ; these are generally modem houses. Others are below the level of the water, half-buried, choked by the houses around; nearly air-tight, so as to prevent all effluvia from escaping; the walls and floors permeable to, and stained by, the excrements from the neighbouring privies, or the rooms small, or filled with dusty furniture instead of fresh air; the trades (shoe-making, turning, platting) carried on in the same room that they live in, or no trade at all followed, and the house a complete speci- men of the results of idleness. Fifty houses in Chesham could at once be named, which on one or other account are not suitable to live in. Some years since the inhabitants were in a very prosperous condition. This has undergone much change ; railroads, by increasing the import- ance of neighbouring towns, are lessening the trade of this one ; the change of fashion and admission of Tuscany straw plat at a lower rate of duty has caused a lucrative employment to become a mere apology for starvation; no provision was made for future adversity, and the consequent poorer nourishment and greater exposure to vicissitudes has had the usual effect in rendering them less able to withstand the attacks of disease. A moderate-sized silk-mill however has been built of late years. Chesham is generally considered a healthy town; nevertheless its mortality is higher than that of the county, being 221 per cent., while that of Buckinghamshire is 2T3 (Mr. Grainger). Epidemic diseases are not severe; small-pox occasionally, as this year, proves fatal, owing to the neglect of vaccination, and the mortality is certainly increased by scarlatina and measles. Three deaths are referred to typhus fever every year; these were as high as 24 in the years 1844-5. Twenty-three deaths annually are accounted for by strumous diseases out of an average yearly mortality of 136, of which 50 are children dying in infancy. During the last quarter of 1848, 44 persons died of Asiatic cholera, and 2 more in the ensuiug month of 1849. Fever, instead of 3, gave 7 deaths; low inflammations, as typhoid peritonitis, &c., 4, where usually 2, and in January 1849 alone, 6; (several of the last-named number being doubtless due to infection). Causes of death annually referred to old age, (fewer by many since the intro- duction of medical certificates,) to acute inflammations, chronic diseases, accidents and disordered, bowels, are all insignificant or uninteresting. (See Appendix.)