Mr. John Spear's report to the Local Government Board on the prevalence of "fever" in the urban sanitary district of Maryport.

  • Spear, John.
Date:
[1882]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. John Spear's report to the Local Government Board on the prevalence of "fever" in the urban sanitary district of Maryport. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    31st of May, her death being registered as from “ enteric fever,” of 24 days’ duratio and her mother, who lived with her, died four days later, having, it was said exhibit symptoms of the prevailing malady, although the death was registered as from o ao-e and exhaustion.” The disease further extended to the family of another brother, living; in a poor, ill-ventilated, “back-to-back’ house, in a court in Kirby Street. Here six persons suffered. Clothing taken from the person of one of the patients before mentioned was deposited for two or three weeks, without precaution, m a wash-house used in common by several families. A neighbour who handled these clothes con¬ tracted the fever; it spread throughout her family. Her mother, who came to nurse her caught it likewise, and took it to her own squalid home. There, m a house connected with a public bake-house, the whole of the inmates, consisting of three adults and six children, eventually suffered ; and the three adults died. The house, which was reported by the Health Officer to be totally unfit for habitation, was, after the second death, closed by the Sanitary Authority, the remaining inmates being removed to the hospital of the Guardians; and this is the only instance in which, amidst all this fever and urgent need for action, the Sanitary Authority appear to have intervened. . It would be tedious to follow further the progress of the epidemic. I he above are fairly representative facts as to the manner in which the infection, throughout its course, extended, and as to the sort of house and household chosen for its invasion. Considerably over 100, probably nearly 200, cases occurred; and between April and the date of my visit 17 deaths at least must be reckoned. Some 53 cases were treated in the little fever hospital belonging to the Guardians. Removal thence, effected under the orders of the Poor Law Authority, was resorted to for the most part only as the sufferers came to be deprived, by extension of the sickness, of the aid of their friends. It was accomplished often late on in the progress of cases, and sometimes infected individuals would be left at home whilst others were removed. In a word, the hospital was used, as a Guardians’ hospital should be used, for the relief of destitution; but the promptitude and thoroughness required when the control of a spreading disease is the object to be gained was wholly wanting. Moreover, no measures of precaution seem to have been applied in respect of the vacated dwellings ; nor in the case of infected individuals left at their homes. The Inspector of Nuisances stated that in several cases he had given verbal directions as to disinfection and cleansing; but no disinfection had been carried out under his supervision, nor under that of the Medical Officer of Health, and no formal notices to disinfect were served. The Sanitary Condition of the Town.—Maryport is a town that one might expect would harbour typhus should that disease once make its appearance there. The houses, almost everywhere, are built on a quite insufficient area. Standing in the streets one sees on either side to all appearances ordinary dwellings; but, entering these, there is found to be no through communication, often no through ventilation whatever, to the back; and, returning to the street, in the line of houses there will be discovered narrow arched openings, and these lead to crowded and mostly squalid courts, the houses of one side of which back the houses of the street just visited, whilst the houses of the opposite side back the houses of the street just beyond. Or a more common adaptation of this general plan is for four streets to be built in the form of a square facing outwards. The quadrangular space thus enclosed is not, however, left vacant; in it are huddled similar small and squalid courts and squares, deficient often in light as well as in ventila¬ tion, and entered by passages similar to those above described. Then as to the condition of individual dwellings, a very large number that I visited I found wholly unfit for habitation; not only because of their crowded surroundings, but by reason also of their own defects—want of light and ventilation, dilapidation, dampness, absence of sanitary conveniences. In many of the dwellings the rooms are extremely small; the filthiness of them is really shocking; and the foetor of them often such as to compel an imme^ diate retreat from the opened door. Windows are commonly not made to open, or a single small pane on hinges is all the means of ventilation provided. There are many cellars wholly unfit for habitation, judged of by any standard whatever, that are occupied separately as dwellings. Some of these are wholly beneath the surface of the ground; and sometimes a back cellar, receiving its sole supply of light and ventilation from the cellar in front, will be used by several persons as a sleeping apartment. Overcrowding is very common, partly owing, it is said, to the number of labourers now employed on new and extensive dock works; and not unfrequently it is of the most indecent kind. The town is as yet unsewered, and the open channels which take the place of sewers, and down which, along the front streets, slop water and other foul liquid is discharged, are 22502705720