Drainage and sewerage.

  • Metropolitan Working Classes' Association for Improving the Public Health
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Drainage and sewerage. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ship fever, have always haunted the abodes of filth ; and typhus fever—our modern pestilence—for it attacks annually between 150,000 and 200,000 individuals, and destroys 16,000, Is no exception to the rule. Could w’e trace back every pesti¬ lence to its source, we should find the same common origin. The cholera took its rise in a low, swampy part of India; and, after traversing Europe, found a congenial home among the neglected portions of the large towns and cities of this country. There was a time, too, when ague and low typhoid fevers were prevalent in Lincolnshire, to such an extent that ague was said to be a Lincolnshire disease. The traveller hears little of it now. Improvement has stept in; large drains intersect once dreary swamps, and plains from which emanated deadly vapours, now teem with rich harvests, adding another fact to the interesting chapter of human progress ; and shewing that civilization not only increases the comforts of man, but extends the duration of his life. 3.—The pressure of disease arising from these evils will be best indicated by a reference to the difference of mortality in town and country districts, as also the difference between several neighbourhoods of one town. We find, for instance, that 27 years is the average duration of life in London, and 17 years in Liverpool. Infant life is the most affected by atmospheric impurity; and we find in the purely agricultural districts that out of 1,000 births only 221 die under five years of age ; whilst in manufacturing districts the deaths under five years of age are above 385. We find that out of 1,000,000 persons living in the country, where there are only 199 inhabitants to the square mile, there are 19,300 deaths ; but in towns where the population to the square mile is 5,108, there occur 27,073 deaths out of 1,000,000—making an excess in the towns over the country districts of 7,773. The rate of mortality in the latter is only one in 52, whilst in the former it is one in 37. In the districts of Leeds, where there are 207 persons to the acre, and where out of 171 streets 109 are decidedly bad, the deaths are one in 23 ; in other parts of the town, where there are only 84 persons to the acre, and the streets are better conditioned, the deaths are only one in 36. The results of a partial drainage in Leicester are found in the improved health of those occupying the streets which are culverted. There is a difference, amounting to seven years loss of life in the undrained, as compared with the drained districts ; and this is confirmed by statements, made relative to Preston, by the Rev. John Clay ; and of Chorlton-upon-