Dr. Ballard's report to the local goverment board upon an epidemic of enteric fever in the village of Millbrook, in the rural sanitary district of St. German's, Cornwall.

  • Ballard, Edward.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Ballard's report to the local goverment board upon an epidemic of enteric fever in the village of Millbrook, in the rural sanitary district of St. German's, Cornwall. 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.

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    Dr. Ballard’s Report to the Local Government Board upon an Epidemic Outbreak of Enteric Fever in the Village of Millbrook, in the Rural Sanitary District of St. German’s, Cornwall. George Buchanan, Medical Department, December 7, 1880. The village of Millbrook is situated at the head of a creek or branch of the Hamoaze, known as Millbrook Lake. At low water the wlioie extent of the creek, except a very narrow channel, is nothing but mud banks. IVherc houses adjoin it and drain into the lake, these banks are very often offensive. A branch of the creek, of the nature of a tidal brook, about a yard and a half wide, runs up through a part of the village and forms a common open sewer, into which houses along its banks drain, and into which the privies connected with them discharge themselves. This brook is in a very filthy condition habitually, the Sanitary Authority and the Highways Authority not having agreed as to whose business it is to keep it in good order. The village, consisting of several streets of houses, almost all of the cottage class, and occupied by artizans, small tradespeople, and pensioners and their families, lies partly at the level of the creek, and partly on ground rising, sometimes steeply, from that level. Beneath the surface earth there is a loose slaty rock for a varying depth, and below it a firmer rock of the same character, through the fissures of which water can percolate. Prior to last year the only drainage the village possessed consisted of square flat-bottomed superficial drains in the highways, constructed of slabs of stone set up edgeways at the sides of flat-bottomed trenches, and covered at the top with similar slabs. They were constructed ostensibly for the drainage of the highways, but domestic slop waters were discharged into them also, and, in some instances, waterclosets had been connected with them too. The final discharge of these drains was into the lake at the head of the creek and along its edge. Privies were almost invariably of the old-fashioned cesspit type—mere holes dug into the earth or loose rock beneath. A loan of 1,000/. having been sanctioned and obtained for the purpose, sewering Avorks were com- menced in September 1879, and completed in March 1880, and now pipe sewers have been laid down in the principal streets. But about one-third of the village is still unsewered. In such parts the old square drains are still in use as before. It is said that where pipes have been put in, the square drains have been broken up. In some parts the old square drains have been made to communicate with the new sewers. It is said that generally where new sewers have been provided, private pri^mises have been connected with them. Notices thus to connect were served by the Authority upon the owners of all houses in the course of the new sewers, and many at once complied; but there was no one appointed by the Authority to see that the house drains were properly laid or the connexions duly or safely made, so that on all hands there is entire ignorance on this important subject. In some instances (the Inspector of Nuisances, Mr. Johns, who acted also as the surveyor of the Authority in this matter, says in about one half the houses in the line of the sewers), the cesspit privies have been emptied and filled in with rubble, and waterclosets substituted. I certainly saw a good many premises in the line of the sewers where cesspit privies still existed, and where they were in an offensive condition; the only connexion of private premises with the sewer in those cases being by means of a drain having its inlet, sometimes trapped and sometimes untrapped, in the back yard or within the dwelling itself. Where there was a trap it was usually the ordinary inefficient bell-trap. Sometimes I heard complaints of stinks proceeding from inlets within houses. Q 3395. lOJr—12/80. Wt. 11073. E. & S. A