History of the epidemic of cholera in Chatham, Rochester, and Strood, in 1849 / by Thomas Stratton ... in a letter to Sir Wm. Burnett ... Medical-Director of the Navy.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the epidemic of cholera in Chatham, Rochester, and Strood, in 1849 / by Thomas Stratton ... in a letter to Sir Wm. Burnett ... Medical-Director of the Navy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Some married men of the marines live in these courts, and, for a single small room in this low, damp, and unhealthy situation, pay the rent of two shillings and sixpence a-week, or six pounds four shillings a-year. In these lanes, the children have a very sickly appearance ; bowel complaints are prevalent all the year round, and there are occasional outbreaks of low fever. In Mr Ranger’s pamphlet, Dr Ely, one of the oldest practitioners in Chatham, gives this account of these lanes. Mr Jack has found the account to be so confirmed for the last two or three years since coming to Chatham, and my own observation and practice there are to the same effect. Passing along the High Street of Chatham, we next see on the right hand some ground set apart for market gardens, lying be- tween the street and the Medway; beyond this we enter the city of Rochester, and are immediately struck with the much more cleanly state of the street than is exhibited in Chatham. The houses, also, have a better appearance; and the proportion of in- habitants in comfortable circumstances, and with habits of atten- tion to cleanliness, is evidently much greater than it is in the former town. The ground now rises a little, and does so all the way gradually, on to the end of Rochester, near the bridge over the Medway. Gillingham is a village closely adjoining Brompton. New Brompton is a suburb of Brompton. Luton is a village near Chatham. Of the Epidemic Cholera in Chatham in 1882.—When cho- lera was last epidemic in Great Britain, it prevailed in Chatham in 1832; but I was unable to discover accurately the number of cases and deaths from it, as registration was then imperfect. I intended learning the number of deaths in 1831 when there was no cholera, and comparing this with the number in the cholera year of 1832; in this way we might approximately learn the number of deaths from the epidemic, on the supposition that cholera deaths are a clear addition to the usual mortality. (This was found to be the case in Exeter in 1832.*) The Melville Hospital records for 1832 were not at hand ; but Mr Drake inform- ed me that four cholera deaths occurred in the hospital. Several persons of whom I inquired said there were only a few cases. A friend of mine, a non-practising surgeon, and who from his pro- fession might naturally be supposed to take a moderate interest in the subject, said to me, at the close of the epidemic in 1849, that he believed there had been only a few cases ;—his idea v'as, that there had been about fifteen or twenty deaths,—when in reality there had been 167. This shows that it is impossible to reach any accuracy by trusting to the unstatistical word few. It is not unlikely that the epidemic prevailed in Chatham to about the same * History of the Cholera in Exeter in 1832. By Dr Shapter. London, 1849.
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