[Report 1880] / Medical Officer of Health, Liverpool City.
- Liverpool City Council
- Date:
- 1880
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1880] / Medical Officer of Health, Liverpool City. Source: Wellcome Collection.
11/76 page 11
![Heat by itself will not produce diarrhoea, but acting upon organic matter it piomotes decomposition, filling the atmosphere with noxious emanations, which, with the exhalations from a crowded population, envelopes as in a fog the ill-ventilated parts of the City. Whether any specific organisms are pro¬ duced or their growth and productiveness fostered under the influence of a high temperature has not been decided, but neither heat nor dirt alone will produce diarrhoea, but, combined, the result is certain. An important element to be considered, where there is a high infantile mortality, is the birth-rate, which supplies the material most favourable for disease. In the year 1879 only four of the large towns had a higher birth¬ rate than Liverpool, and three of them — Hull, Birmingham, and Salford—had this year a higher death-rate from diarrhoea. During the third quarter of this year the birth-rate in Liverpool was higher than in any of the large towns, but the above-named towns, with Sheffield, Norwich, Leeds, and Leicester, had a higher proportional mortality. Though the disease was general over the whole City, yet, on reference to the map, the greatest mortality will be found in those districts where the houses are most crowded together and the population most dense. The con¬ sequence of those insanitary conditions is reflected in the genera] high rate of infantile mortality which prevails in these localities, and it can be no matter of surprise that, when diarrhcea prevails, the enfeebled constitutions and lowered vitality of the children render them unable to cope with the disease, and they sink into early graves. The system of sub-letting houses greatly aggravates the evil, and is causing districts once comparatively healthy to be now the constant homes of disease, and the Medical Officer regrets to state that this practice is extending and deteriorating the physical and moral condition of the people. The cause, no doubt, in the first instance, arose from poverty, but it has now become a general custom, and is in too many cases the origin as well as the consequence of improvidence. The neglect and indifference with which children are treated in some of these houses is painful to witness, and that large numbers of them die can excite no surprise, for the wonder is that any of them survive.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2973714x_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
