Second report on quarantine : yellow fever : with appendices / [by the] General Board of Health.

  • Great Britain. General Board of Health
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second report on quarantine : yellow fever : with appendices / [by the] General Board of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    172/428 (page 164)
    Sanitary Condition of Gibraltar. (Nos. 24 and 25^), there was a greater accumulation of filt], than ordinary m some of the branches of the sewers, and in the soil-pits. I am of opinion that when certain conditional causes,_ or more properly conditional states, exist, which favour by their fortuitous assemblage, the emanation from the eartli of the peculiar poison productive of Yellow Fever, a more accelerated developement of that poison is likely to take place near such places ; and, in this view, foul sewers may fairly bo considered as accessories.! To deny the influence of localities (as the neighbourhood of drains, gullies, &c.) as co-operatin<r, in the development of the disease, or even in giving it a higher degree of malignancy, would be excluding facts whicli, in the minds of impartial people, must be quite conclusive. Objections may, beyond all doubt, be made against the manner in which a great part of the town is constructed; many places inhabited by the poorer classes being excavated or scarped, to make room for the buildings, which, range after range, ascend for a considerable way up. Many of the houses have, therefore, from their being thus built on the side of the rock, necessarily most inadequate ventilation. A common feature of the dwellings is that of small '^patios or square confined courts, entered by narrow alleys, in which the ^ houses consist of several floors, each occupied by many families. Gibraltar is therefore to be considered as greatly overcrowded, which may perhaps be conceived from a reference to the view attached to this report, showing the small space occupied by the town, near the northern extremity of the rock. It was not until I had become principal medical officer,^ in 1833, when I considered it my duty, as general superin- tendent of the health of the population, to visit, all the lanes, alleys, and patios, that I could have formed any idea of the densely crowded and badly ventilated houses of these localities, and of the difficulty of conceiving how such places should in general prove healthy, amongst a mixed population of about 15,000, exclusive of military, within the walls. For here we have, in the inadequate supply of water,—the existence of cesspools and ill-constructed drains,—and the over- crowding,—precisely the same assemblage of predisposing or localizing causes which are found to exist in the fever nests of; London and other large towns, and which are so prejudicial during the prevalence of epidemic diseases. In reference to the first appearance of Yellow Fever iu- * Plan (A.) ' t See Dr. Hennen's Letter to Sir G. Don, Addenda (E/), p. 212. X Soon after my appoifitment it was ordered by the Colonial OflSce, -without any communication from me, that tlie principal medical officer should also act in the capacity of Medical Member of the Quarantine Board.