Dr. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on the recent prevalence of "fever" in the Bedlingtonshire urban sanitary district, and on the general sanitary condition of that district / [H. Franklin Parsons].

  • Parsons, H. Franklin (Henry Franklin), 1846-1913.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on the recent prevalence of "fever" in the Bedlingtonshire urban sanitary district, and on the general sanitary condition of that district / [H. Franklin Parsons]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    refuse. The yard gully is trapped, but there was at the time when the fever occurred a very offensive untrapped gully in the street in front of the house. At the date of my visit this had been covered up with ashes. The first patient, Jenkinson, worked in the Sleekburn Colliery and had not been away from Bedlingtonshire for some time before his illness. He attributed his illness to his having shortly before—the statements of himself and his wife differed as to whether it was three or four days or a fortnight before—emptied the privy midden and wheeled the contents into the street for removal. This operation, as before mentioned, is considered to be the duty of the tenant in places where a cart cannot be brought up alongside the ashpit. It has to be done at intervals of about three months. The man was doing it again at the time of my visit, and, as may be supposed, it was very offensive. The exact date of Jenkinson’s illness could not be ascertained, but it was in the earlier part of 1889, before June. It did not come to the knowledge of the Medical Officer of Health until some months afterwards, when he was inquiring about a subsequent case. At the time of Jenkinson’s illness the house in which he lived was occupied by five families, numbering 25 inmates, 10 of whom were adults and 15 children ; three of these families were sub¬ sequently invaded by enteric fever, and there were in them 11 cases, all in children. The only family which escaped consisted of man, wife, and one child, and occupied the top front room corresponding to Jenkinson’s. All the families made use of the same privy accommodation. At the time of my visit new tenants had come into one of the tenements in which fever had existed. The rooms had in the interval been fumigated with sulphur, but no efficient cleansing had been performed : the wall paper had not been removed, nor the walls or ceilings limewashed. Following these cases, which were all considered by Dr. Maclaren of Bed- lington to be enteric fever, there were a number of others in the cluster of confined and filthy courts in the same neighbourhood, and the disease still existed there at the time of my visit in December. Moreover, the infection was carried from Jenkinson’s to Scotland Gate, where also enteric fever spread and caused several deaths. On the other side of Chapel Bow there were cases in two adjacent houses. In the yard behind these there is between the back doors of the two houses an offensive untrapped drain inlet, and there is also a very large privy midden about 5 feet from the back doors. The first case in these houses was a child belonging to one of the families over the way, who was brought there ill. An elderly woman in the next house took enteric fever and died September 22nd. In the house in which the first case occurred the two upstair rooms are let separately to a family, consisting of the parents, five children, and a relative, who lodges with them. All of these except the youngest baby suffered from enteric fever, and two of the children were still ill at the time of my visit. The back window of one of these upstair rooms overlooks the privy midden, the smell from which is much complained of. Dr. Maclaren says that Chapel Row is never free from illness. There were cases of enteric fever in two houses in Walker Terrace, the next lane parallel with Chapel Row, and in which similar unsanitary con¬ ditions prevail. In one of these houses two deaths from enteric fever occurred in September. The house consists of a single room of about 1,400 cubic feet capacity, in which reside a man, his wife, and five children (formerly seven). The room is partly underground; the walls are damp, and the ceiling dilapidated. The man carries on the business of rag and bone collector, and the house was found in a filthy state. In the next lane, Coach Road, parallel with and close to Walker Terrace, cases of enteric fever, some of them being recent, were heard of in eight families, the disease in several of these being concurrent with scarlet fever. The houses on the north-west side of Coach Road have at the back very narrow common yards, shut in by high buildings. Within these narrow confined spaces are large open privy middens, one of which is built against one house, is only 3 feet from the pantry window of a second house, and only 3 feet 6 inches from the back door of a third. There are, or were, also in the backyards untrapped offensive drain openings, but some of these have lately been replaced by e 61197. A 3