Report on the sanitary condition of certain parts of Manchester : being a letter addressed to the committee of the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association / by A.T.H. Waters.

  • Waters, A. T. Houghton (Alderman Thomas Houghton), 1826-1912
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the sanitary condition of certain parts of Manchester : being a letter addressed to the committee of the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association / by A.T.H. Waters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The railway runs through the locality, and the river Medlock runs at the back of it. Although a confined spot, and surrounded by high buildings, yet some of the streets have open spaces in front of them; and although the overcrowding is great, it is far less than in some other localities I have visited. Some of the houses are likely to be rendered more unhealthy by an “improvement” which is now being made in Great Marlborough-street. The level of this street has been raised some ten or twelve feet, and the consequence is, that the lower stories of the houses situated close to it are converted into cellars. I have specially alluded to the state of this locality, for the purpose of endeavouring to explain the cause of the immunity it enjoyed during the last outbreak of cholera. It has been mentioned as a remarkable fact, that but few cases of the disease occurred in Little Ireland, a district said to be in every respect as bad, in a sanitary point of view, as those in which it prevailed to the greatest extent; and the fact has been explained, on the ground that there was but little intercourse between the inhabitants of the infected districts and those of Little Ireland. I am not aware, from my own experience, what was the condition of this locality in 1849, but I am informed by the Sanitary officer of the Corporation, that it was very- similar to that which it now presents; and as the streets are neither so closely packed together, nor is there so much overcrowding as exists in many other parts of the city, and as the inhabiting of cellars is the exception and not the rule, I think the immunity must be in a great measure
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