[Report 1903] / Medical Officer of Health, Longton Borough.

  • Longton (Staffordshire, England). Borough Council.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1903] / Medical Officer of Health, Longton Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    / 15 Privy Cesspools 11 Hand Flush Pans 3 Ducketts i Fowler i Water Closet The privy cesspools, hand flush pans, Ducketts and Fowler’s are all condemned by sanitary experts, and I shall be pleased when I can report that they no longer exist in the Borough. But, gentlemen, when will that be? All the excreta from these cases was received in special pails supplied from Mr. Cooke's office as soon as I was noti¬ fied of the disease, and emptied into the Destructor two or three times weekly, after being mixed with ashes and disinfectants. I wish to call your attention to the fact that Typhoid is a troublesome disease to notify, as a case may exist for a week or more before the doctor in attendance can be sure of his diagnosis, and in order to get over this difficulty I have sent round to all the medical gentlemen in the town, asking them to be good enough to- send word to the Sanitary Inspector's Office immediately they have a suspicion that a case may be Typhoid, so that we can send a bucket at once as a precautionary measure. I found, on visiting one of the cases, a water tap close to a stopped-up drain in the yard, and therefore sent a sample of the water to Professor Leith, of Birmingham University, for bacterio¬ logical examination. The report was most satisfactory'. In the poorer houses I often find the cases nursed in the kitchen, and this naturally leads to the infection of others in the same house or houses adjoining. As there is no accommodation at present for Typhoid at the Bucknall Joint Hospital, 1 have advised you in the meantime to use the old Cottage Hospital for isolating these “* kitchen ” cases, and I would again urge the advisability of this step. Of the 36 cases eight died, giving a case-rate of 22-2 per 100, which is very high. The case mortality last year was 2 2^3 per cent. which undoubtedly was contracted at Hanley, where the man worked ; this case was removed to the Small-Pox Hospital at Bagnall the same day it was notified, viz., January 18th. The house was thoroughly disinfected, and all known contacts were re-vaccinated. His wife was quarantined for 14 days, at the expense of the Borough. The second case, in Albion Street, was notified and removed to Hospital on the 3rd of February'. All known contacts were re-vaccinated. Her mother and sister were quarantined in another house for 14 days ; their own house was thoroughly disinfected. I was unable to trace the cause of infection in this case. There was no further spread of the disease. Longton escaped the epidemic with only three cases altogether.