Observations on the prevalence of epidemic fever in Edinburgh and Glasgow; and means suggested for improving the sanitary condition of the poor / [Robert Deuchar].

  • Deuchar, Robert.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the prevalence of epidemic fever in Edinburgh and Glasgow; and means suggested for improving the sanitary condition of the poor / [Robert Deuchar]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    stamp-duty on life policies for small sums, and there is no doubt that * societies of the description proposed would obtain a similar exemp¬ tion. This subject is of deep importance to the working classes. For it has been shown, that in seven years fever has fallen on more than a tithe of the inhabitants of Dundee,—“ choosing its victims there, as elsewhere, in the manhood of life, and compelling the citizens to pay a tax frightful in the amount of personal sufferings and family bereavements.” According to Dr Southwood Smith, we learn, “ that fully one-half of the cases of fever occur in the prime of life, when men are most useful either to their families or to so¬ ciety.” Fever has thus compelled every tenth man in Dundee dur¬ ing the period stated, to lose the wages of six weeks’ labour, and to suffer all the languor, sickness, and oppression of six weeks’ fever, without taking into account the number of bereaved widows and orphans it has left as permanent burdens on the community. The loss sustained by Dundee on this account, has been estimated at no less than L.25,096 per annum; and, if so, what must be the annual amount of loss, and the extent of human misery and suffer¬ ing which are caused by fever in Glasgow, where, in one year, not less than twenty-one thousand persons, or one-tenth of the popula¬ tion, has been subjected to this direful scourge? Such being the claims of the working classes, it is high time for those in authority to bestir themselves—and instead of spending their valuable time in wrangling about matters, many of which are con¬ fessedly of trifling importance either to themselves or the public, it is respectfully submitted, that it is their duty, without delay, to take into consideration the sanitary condition of the community over which they preside; it is not enough that on pressing occasions soup kitchens are opened to supply the famishing poor, or that subscrip¬ tions are exacted to aid the unemployed; to accomplish any perma¬ nent benefit, it is necessary that a well regulated system of opera¬ tion be organized and kept in continual exercise, that disease may be daily and hourly kept in check, as far at least as it is in the power of human means to effect these objects. Hitherto it is to be re¬ gretted that no proper system of Medical Police has been establish¬ ed throughout Scotland. And even in Edinburgh, where this has been attempted by the joint efforts of the leading medical gentle¬ men of the city, and the Committee of the Destitute Sick Society, which resulted in the establishment of the Fever Board, it will scarcely be believed that, on various occasions when it was attempt¬ ed to introduce into the Police statute a clause, empowering the Commissioners to grant a sum in aid of the Board, the Commission¬ ers uniformly rejected the application, on the ground that it was a