Dr. Ballard's report to the local government board on an epidemic of enteric fever at Newlyn, in the rural sanitary district of St. Columb, Cornwall.

  • Ballard, Edward.
Date:
1880
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Ballard's report to the local government board on an epidemic of enteric fever at Newlyn, in the rural sanitary district of St. Columb, Cornwall. 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. Ballard’s Report to the Local Government Board on an Epidemic of Enteric Fever at Newlyn, in the Rural Sanitary District of St. Columb, Cornwall. George Buchanan, Medical Department, December 22nd, 1880. Newlyn, otherwise known as Newlyn (East), is an irregularly built mining village of about 150 houses, nearly all of the cottage class, and about 650 inhabitants, formerly prosperous, but now poor on account of the closure of mines in the vicinity. It is situated on the summit of a hill, and the older part of the village surrounds the churchyard wdiich is overfull. In this older part many of the cottages are mud built and grievously dilapidated, some being quite unfit for the habitation of human beings. On the road called Metha Lane there is a steep descent from the village for about 100 yards to a hollow, in which is situated the “ town well,” to be presently more fully described. The only drain in the whole village is a badly arranged and badly constructed road drain, which, having openings or inlets in convenient spots, commences at an isolated cottage to the east of the church, passes round the south side of the church, and then down into the hollow above mentioned, where it empties itself near the town well into a field ditch. (This course is indicated by a red interrupted line in the plan appended to this report.) It receives not only road drainage, but house-slops and overflows from cottage cesspools, &c., along its course. Otherwise the village is altogether without drainage ; slops and liquid filth of all kinds are thrown into the roadway to run off or soak in, or into open trenches or surface depressions about the cottages, where these matters stagnate. Complaints are made of frequent stinks arising from the inlets of the village drain. A large proportion of the cottages, (I cannot tell the exact proportion, but apparently about half of them,) have no privy accommodation; the men, they say, go into the fields, and the excrement of the women and children is thrown out upon the gardens or upon some midden-heap near the houses. Where there are privies these places are open cesspits or hollows dug in the ground, over part of which the privy is erected, and are often close to the houses. The wretched appearance of such a village, especially on a wet day, with its pools of surface and slop water lying about everywhere close to the cottages, and sodden excrement visible anywhere at the rear or sides, can be better imagined than described. I have seen nothing worse in the most neglected mining villages in Staffordshire. There are three public wells, the “ town well,” the “new well,” and the “ western well,” and one spring or spout known as “ Butt’s spring,” for the public supply of water. The “ town well ” and the “ western well ” are covered, and furnished each with a pump ; the “ new well ” is open. Dp to the time of the closure of the “townwrell,” to be presently mentioned, only a few of the inhabitants of the village were permitted to use Butt’s spring; but since that time the inhabitants of the village generally have been permitted to use it. But practically for some few years past the only public source available has been the “town well,” the “new well ” having rarely had much water in it, and the water of the “ western well ” tasting of iron so much as to deter the villagers from its use. Of the five or six private wells in the village, only one (that at the Commercial Inn) is in use, the use of the others having been given up on account of obvious pollution and un- wholesomeness. Hence for a long time past all the villagers (except those few who used Butt’s spring and a few living at the outskirts, who sometimes got drinking water from other private springs or spouts outside the village, and a few who occasionally used rain wrater collected from the roofs of their cottages) have had to carry water in pitchers to their houses from the town Q 3531. 100.—1/81. Wt. 11947. E. & S. A