Dr. Airy's report to the Local Government Board on an outbreak of diphtheria at Great Dunmow / [Hubert Airy].

  • Airy, Hubert, 1838-1903.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Airy's report to the Local Government Board on an outbreak of diphtheria at Great Dunmow / [Hubert Airy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/6
    OFFICIAL COPY. / ■L &KARY General Collections +P Wimiw ^ »»ru • -f.'Hirt t*« rrM^nn Dr. Airy’s Report to the Local Government Board on an Out¬ break of Diphtheria at Great Dunmow. George Buchanan, Medical Department, August 20, 1883. In consequence of a public statement in the “ Essex Herald” of May 7th, 1883, that diphtheria was alarmingly prevalent in Dunmow and the neighbourhood, supported by private representations as to the unsanitary state of the town, the Board, on May 14th, ordered the matter to be inquired into by one of their medical inspectors. I was in¬ structed accordingly on May 15, and I visited Dunmow on May 18th and following days, and now beg to report the result of my inquiries. Up to the time of my visit there had been, as far as was known, since the beginning of the year, about 36 cases of diphtheria in the Dunmow Rural Sanitary District, of which no fewer than 20 proved fatal, including three which were registered as “ malig¬ nant sore throat.” [Two additional cases have since arisen in a family already infected.] Twenty-three of the 36 cases had occurred in the parish of Great Dunmow (popula¬ tion 3,005); the remaining 13 in neighbouring parishes. Of these 13 outlying cases the greater number showed no connexion with those in Great Dunmow. One group in particular, in the parish of Hatfield Broad Oak, comprising six cases, five of them ending fatally, will claim special attention in this respect. The first appearance of undoubted diphtheria in this outbreak took place at Great Dunmow in January of the present year. It had been noticed, however, for two or three months previously that some of the children were suffering with sore throats. In one of these children, who had been ill about Christmas, there was some appearance of loss of tissue from one tonsil, and there was a suspicion of nasal intonation in his voice, suggestive of the characteristic effects of an attack of diphtheria. I was told by Mr. W. B. Clapham, who has long been in practice at Dunmow, that in the autumn he habitually meets with cases of sore throat characterised by diphtheritic patches. Fatal diphtheria, however, appears to have been very rare in the town, for the death register of the Dunmow sub-district, which includes the town, records only two deaths registered under that name in the last 10 years. The last was in 1878. Since that year there have been only five deaths registered from diphtheria in the Dunmow Union, all five being in the Stebbing sub-district, four in 1879 and one in the third quarter of 1882. Appended to this report is a list of the families attacked by diphtheria in this epidemic. The family A., in which the disease was first clearly recognised, is that of a cooper working at a brewery in the town. The family were otherwise healthy and well off, and their dwelling generally wholesome and comfortable. In the back kitchen, under the sink, was a moveable bell-trap, and close to the back door was a defective drain-trap, whence a drain smell was occasionally perceived when the wind lay in a certain quarter. The drain ran for about 14 yards down the yard and joined a drain from neighbouring premises in a small brick catch-pit, which on examination at my visit was found fairly clean and free from smell. The further course of the drain ends in a filthy open sewer ditch which saps the back wall of an adjoining cottage, and, passing through gardens and meadows and under a public pathway, discharges into the River Chelmer. There is no reason, however, to think that the state of this drain or of the house-traps was exceptionally bad last January previous to the outbreak of diphtheria. LONDON: Printed by EYRE and SPOTTISWOODE, Printers to the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, AND SOLD BY KNIGHT and Co., 90, Fleet Street ; SHAW and SONS, Fetter Lane ; HADDEN, BEST, and Co., 227, Strand; P. S. KING and SON, Canada Building, King Street, Westminster. R 8044. Price Fourpence. 250.—8/83. Wt. 6310. E. & S.