Dr. H.F. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on the recent prevalence of scarlet fever and diphtheria in the Thorne registration district, and on the general sanitary condition of the sanitary districts comprised therein / [H. Franklin Parsons].

  • Parsons, H. Franklin (Henry Franklin), 1846-1913.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. H.F. Parsons's report to the Local Government Board on the recent prevalence of scarlet fever and diphtheria in the Thorne registration district, and on the general sanitary condition of the sanitary districts comprised therein / [H. Franklin Parsons]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Dr. H. F. Parsons’s Report to the Local Government Board on the ecent prevalence of Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria in the Thorne Registration District, and on the general sanitary ondition of the Sanitary Districts comprised therein. Collections 1 +P George Buchanan, Medical Department. August 8th, 1883. The Thorne Registration District (Union) is a level fenny tract, situated partly in the south of Yorkshire, partly in the north of Lincolnshire. The eastern boundary of the district is the Trent, here a great tidal river; and the Don, also a tidal river, traverses the district near its western border. On the northern and southern borders of the district are two large uncultivated tracts of peat morass, called respectively Thorne Waste and Hatfield Moor. The district was in ancient times a swampy waste, forming a part of the royal forest of Hatfield Chase, but by the skill and enterprise of successive generations of engineers and capitalists, commencing with Cornelius Vermuyden in the reign of Charles I., it has, with the exception of the tracts above mentioned, been converted into fertile, mostly arable, land. Rivers have been embanked; straight courses cut for the streams instead of the old tortuous channels of which the course may still be traced; wide drains have been cut for the drainage of the land, and steam pumping engines erected for getting rid of the excess of water in wet weather.* In the neighbourhood of the Don and Trent the land has been enriched by “ warping,” a process of tidal irrigation with the muddy water of those rivers. The agricultural main drainage of the district is under the superintendence of the Hatfield Chase Commissioners. Geologically the district rests upon the triassic rocks; new red sandstone in the western part; red marl with bands of gypsum in the eastern part. These are, however, more or less covered up by a series of post-tertiary beds, the usual sequence of which, from above, is as follows : 1. Warp, a loam deposited from the river water by natural or artificial agency. 2. Peat, with the remains of an ancient forest at the base. 3. Sand. 4. Strong laminated clay. 5. Gravel and sand. Through the superjacent beds, the triassic rocks, capped with more recent gravels, rise here and there, forming low eminences above the level plain. In former times when the flat country, being mostly below high-water mark, was frequently sub¬ merged, these were islands, a circumstance which the names of such places in some instances still record. Upon these rising grounds all the principal places in the district are situated; the other villages being upon the banks of the rivers. Besides the dwellers in the towns and villages, a not inconsiderable fraction of the population reside in outlying, sometimes very remote, farmhouses, with their appertaining cottages. The area of the district is 71,101 acres; the population was, in 1881, 16,181, having declined from 17,011 in 1871. The district contains three small market towns, viz., Thorne, Epworth, and Crowle. Orowle is an urban sanitary district, under a local board, but the remainder of the union is under the jurisdiction of the guardians as rural sanitary authority. The district is traversed from west to east by the Stainforth and Keadby Canal, which, joining the Don and the Trent, conveys a large traffic between the mineral and manu¬ facturing district of South Yorkshire on the one hand, and Hull and other ports on the Humber on the other hand. Many of the watermen reside at Stainforth, Thorne, Keadby, and other places in this district. With the exception of these and of the usual professional and commercial residents, the population is purely agricultural, and, like that of other places similarly circumstanced, has declined during the recent years of depression in farming. Many women work in the fields. * Ague, iu old times endemic in the district, now rarely occurs, but a slight recent case was met with during the inspection; the patient was a man occupied in attending to one of the water-engines, and who, in executing some repairs, had before his attack been working amid the spray and exhalations of the marshland drainage water. R 7853. A Wt. 5492.