Dr. Thorne Thorne's report to the local government board on an extensive prevalence of enteric fevre at Prittlewell, in the urban sanitary district of Southend, and on the general sanitary circumstances of the district.

  • Thorne, Richard Thorne.
Date:
1880
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Thorne Thorne's report to the local government board on an extensive prevalence of enteric fevre at Prittlewell, in the urban sanitary district of Southend, and on the general sanitary circumstances of the district. 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. Thorne Thorne’s Report to the Local Government Board on an extensive prevalence of Enteric Fever at Prittlewell, in the Urban Sanitary District of Southend, and on the General Sanitary Circumstances of the District. George Buchanan, Medical Department, June 8th, 1880. Prittlewell is an ancient village lying about one mile north of Southend, of which it is the mother parish. Until about two years ago it was for sanitary purposes under the jurisdiction of the Rural Sanitary Authority of Rochford; but it was then added to the Urban Sanitary District of Southend, with which it bids fair before long to become one continuous town. The village consists of two principal thoroughfares. One runs from east to west, and is divided into two nearly equal portions known respectively as East Street and West Street. At the point where these two streets join, another street, North Street, starts at right angles to them. It has a northerly direction, and a somewhat rapid slope towards a brook which joins the river Roach at Rochford. Towards the end of September 1879, a child, Edith S., sickened in Prittlewell, and when it first received medical attendance on the 10th of that month it was found to be suffering from enteric fever. This child, who is nine years old, is believed not to have left the village for at least many weeks prior to her attack, and inquiry made at that date by the Medical Officer of Health, and again by myself after an interval of near five months, failed to elicit any history of previous infection. On the 29 th of the same month the mother of this child was attacked with the same disease ; two days later two other members of the- family, aged 16 years and 12 years respectively, also sickened. About the middle of October another of the children, one aged four years, was attacked, and at intervals varying from two to about four weeks, three others, whose ages were 6 years, 8 years, and 13 years, sickened; there being in all eight attacks in the same family before the middle of December. The house in which this family lived is situated at the western end of the village. The water-supply was at the time derived from the Vicarage well close by. Until the fever broke out no milk was used by the family. The premises were drained into a cesspool, the contents of which soaked through the foundations into the cellar. This cesspool has since been done away with. On October 7th, a child, Frederick W., aged 8 years, was attacked. The child lived in one of a new group of cottages occupying an isolated position at the western end of the village. The cottage, in common with three other ones, with which it forms a small row, was found to be extremely clean, and to exhibit no source of excremental nuisance. The row is drained into a cesspool, which is situated at some distance from the dwellings ; the cesspool is regularly cleansed every four or six weeks, and there is no direct communication between it and the houses. The water-supply is derived from the Vicarage well; and the milk-supply from a source to which no suspicion attaches. In the second week of November another child was attacked in this house. On the 12th of October the disease appeared in another family also living at the western end of the village, in a yard known as West Cottages, an extremely filthy place, where excrement, drain, and other nuisances were rife, and to some extent still prevail. The person attacked was a young woman, Emily B., aged 16 years, who returned home ill, on the day named, from Southend where she had been in service exactly a fortnight. Three other attacks followed in this house. The girl Emily was ailing when she returned home; she had also spent one day, October 5th, in Prittlewell during the course of the fortnight; and inquiry at the house where she had been living in Southend failed to point to any source of infection there. The water used at her house in Prittlewell was from the Vicarage well, the drainage was into a cesspool, and an offensive Q 885. 100.—6/80. Wt. 460. E & S- ^