Results of sanitary improvement : illustrated by the operation of the metropolitan societies for improving the dwellings of the industrious classes, the working of the Common Lodging-Houses Act, etc. / by Southwood Smith.

  • Smith, Southwood, 1788-1861.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Results of sanitary improvement : illustrated by the operation of the metropolitan societies for improving the dwellings of the industrious classes, the working of the Common Lodging-Houses Act, etc. / by Southwood Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    establishments there has been the like comparative low rate of mortality, and the same total exemption from typlius fever. Evidence confirmatory of the efficacy of sanitary provisions to prevent the recurrence of epidemic diseases, and greatly to reduce the rate of mortality, has been obtained from other sources. One of the most unhealthy spots in the Metropolis has recently afforded a signal instance of it. Three years ago Lambeth-square was as unhealthy as the Potteries. The population remained the same; the occupations, mode of life and habits of the people remained the same; no change of any kind took place, excepting the introduction of certain sanitary improvements. No history is more instructive. Lambeth-square is situated in the Waterloo-road district of the parish of Lambeth. It consists of 37 eight-roomed houses which let at about 28^. a-year, and are chiefly occupied by the foremen of large establishments, and the more skilled and highly- paid class of artizans. In outward appearance, and in their general aspect within, these houses are very superior to the ordi- nary abodes of the same class in other parts of the metropolis, and present no obvious cause of peculiar unhealthiness. According to the last census this square contains a population of 434 souls. Among this number on a house-to-house examina- tion, it was found that in one year (1851) there had occurred 80 attacks of zymotic* and other diseases, and 24 deaths; that is, nearly one person in every five had been laid up with sickness, which had proved fatal in the proportion of between 50 and 60 in 1000. When built about twenty years ago these houses had been fitted up witli untrapped closets, communicating with flat-bottomed brick drains, then in universal use. A number of the drains passed directly under the houses; they were wholly unprovided with any regular water supply for cleansing ; consequently, instead of carry- ing away the ordure, they retained it within the liouses; and the emanations arising from the stagnant mass of putrifying matter, were carried back into the houses, through tlie open closets, in a proportion increasing with the obstruction in the drains. At the beginning of 1852, a new system of drainage was ap- plied to the wliole square. Water-closets were substituted for cesspools, and stoneware pipes for brick drains, and the apparatus Avas provided with an adequate supply of Avater. By tliese improvements the houses Avcre ]>laced in the same sanitary condition essentially as the Society’s dAvellings. The * From a Greek Avord, signifying to ferment. The term is employed metaphorically, as if this class of diseases were produced and propiigated by a kind of fermentation. In these pages it is used merely for the sake of shortness to include the entire class of prevcutible diseases.