Dr. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on an epidemic of diphtheria in the Sowerby Bridge Urban Sanitary District, Yorkshire / [H. Franklin Parsons].

  • Parsons, H. Franklin (Henry Franklin), 1846-1913.
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on an epidemic of diphtheria in the Sowerby Bridge Urban Sanitary District, Yorkshire / [H. Franklin Parsons]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The origin of the outbreak is uncertain. The first case of diphtheria appears to have been that of a girl named Elizabeth A. Mansley, aged eight years, residing at Hollins Mill Lane, in one of a row of outlying cottages in a somewhat damp situation between the canal and the river. This girl, who attended the Board School in Sowerby Bridge, was kept at home from 16th October on account of an illness attended with sore throat. She died on November 7th of what was certified as “ ulcerated throat; ” but Mr. Horsfall, Medical Officer of Health, under whose care she was, in view of subsequent events has no doubt that her case was one of diphtheria. No history of exposure to diphtheritic infection could be ascertained, but a brother living in the same house had shortly before been ill for two or three months with enteric fever.* No exceptional sanitary defect was discovered at the house; the slopstone pipe is in direct connexion with the drain, as is the rule at Sowerby Bridge. Water is laid on to the house from a private supply belonging to an adjoining mill, and obtained from springs in the hill side : in dry weather the spring water is supplemented by that from an open reservoir, and when the latter source is in use the water is spoken of as having a yellow colour. It is laid on to 24 houses, in no others of which had there been, so far as known, any diphtheria, though there was a fatal case later on in January in another house at which water was obtained by dipping from the reservoir. It is not known that diphtheria is transmissible by drinking water, and in the absence of any evidence of special incidence upon the consumers of the water from this reservoir, I am not able to. attribute to it any share in the causation of the outbreak. After Elizabeth Mansley’s death the house was cleansed but not fumigated ; the clothes she had used were boiled in water and exposed to the air. Later on two other children of the same family, Florence and Herbert, suffered from diphtheria; they were both taken ill on or about December 2nd, and both died on December 12th. They both attended the infant department at the Board School; three other children of the family not attending school escaped. I am informed by the clerk to the School Board that Florence and Herbert were- reported to have been sent away from home to their grandmother on or about the 24th of August on account of the illness of a member of the family, no doubt the boy already mentioned who had fever. Florence returned to school on September 10th and Herbert on October 15th ; but they were both absent from November 2nd to November 20th, and again from November 29th. At its outset, as I have already mentioned, the epidemic was confined to children attending the Board Schools, but whether the disease was introduced there by the Mansleys, or whether they themselves contracted it there, I cannot say. From the dates given above it appears that Florence and Herbert were attending school at a time when their sister was ill at home with diphtheria, i.e., up to Friday, November 2nd. They themselves, however, did not contract the disease until a month later. The Board Schools are a modern block of buildings comprising three depart¬ ments, for boys, girls, and infants respectively. These three departments are- in different rooms, with separate entrances, and they have also separate playgrounds and closets. Children in different departments do not therefore, it is said, mix at school, though they may meet on their way thither or at each other’s houses. The cases of diphtheria amongst children attending the Board Schools have been nearly confined to girls and infants : among the boys only three cases are known to have occurred, two of which were secondary to other cases in their families, and the third resided at Norland outside the district. This boy was last at school on November 9th, and went home ill that day. In point of time he was thus the second case among the children at the Board School. I visited his home but could learn no history of exposure to infection. The house is an inn, but being off the main road there are few casual callers, and the customers are mostly people living in the immediate neighbourhood among whom no previous cases of diphtheria were knonn to have occurred. The closet accommodation at the Board Schools consists of three ranges of trough closets at the far end of the playground. Each range has an iron * Associated with the cases of diphtheria in time and locality were a certain number of cases of sore throat not presenting the distinct clinical characters of diphtheria, though probably of the same nature. I did not, however, hear of any prevalence of such sore throat preceding the out¬ break of diphtheria. Origin un¬ certain.