Volume 1

First report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire whether any and what special means may be requisite for the improvement of the health of the metropolis, with minutes of evidence.

  • Great Britain. Metropolitan Sanitary Commission.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire whether any and what special means may be requisite for the improvement of the health of the metropolis, with minutes of evidence. 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.

    55/460 (page 35)
    that moment, the violence of the epidemic was arrested in (hat guard-house. The evidence as to the preventive efficiency of cleanliness is everywhere very cogent. It was remarked (hat the Gorman colonists in Gallicia, who are distinguished by habits of regu- 1-arity and cleanliness from the Sclavonic population, were also distinguished amidst that population by an immunity from cholera. There appear to be no available legal means for the immediate prevention of overcrowding; all we can do is to point it out^ as a source of evil to be dealt with hereafter. External and internal ventilation, however, may be promoted, and we may, by a proper system of cleansing, diminish the impurity of the confined air which the overci'owded population are compelled to breathe. Of the unskilful manner in which the operation of cleansing is sometimes performed, and as a proof that from ignorance of the proper mode of accomplishing this object the very evils may be extended and increased, which it is the intention to prevent, Mr. Bowie,* gives the following ins(ance— What were the means adopted in your district to improve its clean- liness?—Cleaning the drains, and the surface of the streets. Were any means taken to remove the filth?—Yes, but this was done very unskilfully, and und-er the influence of a;reat alarm. Ce.ss- pools were emptied ; drains and sewers opened and cleaned out. The contents of the drains and sewers, if not of the cesspools likewise, were accumulated on the streets, and left in small heaps, for the convenience ot cartage, opposite houses where patients at the time were laid up with cholera. This matter was highly offensive when first placed on the surface, and produced, in some cases, an intolerable stench; so that I thought the very means taken to lessen the disease tended to increase the evil. The stencli from these heaps being peceptible in the houses of patients labouring under cholera at that very time. From what you relate, from the aggravation of (he evil which you represent followed the unskilful attempts at cleansing on the former appearance of the cholera, may we conclude that preventive means for the future shoidd be systematic and comprehensive?—Yes; and they should be adopted at once; and you may be quite certain that, if cholera do not come, the public will have the benefit of them in the prevention of typhus. On the other hand, the same witness gives an example of the beneficial effects of sanitary regulations, although very imperfect, when tried upon one of the worst conditioned populations—the occupiers of a common lodging house, situated in one of the most contaminated localities. After having described the means adopted to secure effective cleanliness as well as ventilation in the model lodging house in Glasshouse-yard, Mr. Bowief is asked : * App. No; 1, First Part, t App. No. ], Second Part. D 2