Plague : papers relating to the modern history and recent progress of Levantine plague / prepared from the time to time by direction of the president of the Local Government Board, with other papers ; sented to both House of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty.
- Radcliffe, Netten.
- Date:
- 1879
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Plague : papers relating to the modern history and recent progress of Levantine plague / prepared from the time to time by direction of the president of the Local Government Board, with other papers ; sented to both House of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![September a labourer had undoubted Asiatic cholera, of which afterwards he died; and from then, for about six weeks, cholera-cases continued to occur in small numbers in and about Southampton, so that on the 4jth November (when the little epidemic might be considered at an end) there had been in all 60 such cases, of which 35 had terminated in death. It is a question whether from Southampton, or in any more direct way, the morbific influence may in August or September have reached Weymouth or Portland or Dorchester: I have no proof that any such infection took place : but accidentally I am informed that a gentleman from a distance, who early in August was spending a week in Weymouth, and visiting both Portland and Dorchester, contracted during that week a diarrhoea which on his return home developed to severe cholera; and in September there occurred, in the neighbourhood of London, the following events, which give peculiar interest to the question. Mr. G. and his wife, inhabitants of Theydon-Bois, near Epping, had been lodging at Weymouth for seventeen days from the 8th September, had visited Portland on the 22nd, and Dorchester on the 23rd, and returned home on the 25th. On the evening of the 23rd Mr. G. had been seized with diarrhoea, sickness, and cramps, which continued more or less through the next day, and left him still unwell on the morning of the 25tli. He, however, performed his journey to Epping with his wife. She, during the journey, began also to complain of abdominal discomfort; and this, after her return, developed, with gradaallyincreasing diarrhoea, to cholera, of which (in its secondary fever) she eventually died on the 11th October. On the 30th September (while the last-named patient was still in collapse) one of her daughters, aged eight, was seized with cholera, and in a few hours died. That same night, a serving-lad in the house was seized with cholera, and barely escaped with his life. On the 2nd October, the doctor who was attending them died of cholera, after 10 hours' illness. On the 3rd, another daughter of the house, aged 16, passed into cholera, but eventually, after some consecutive fever, recovered. On the 5th, a maid-servant got diarrhoea, which, though relieved for the time, relapsed and become choleraic on the 8th, and she, after some promise of recovery, fell into secon- dary fever, with which she eventually died. On the 5th also a labourer who worked on the premises, but lived apart, was taken with diarrhoea, which, passing on to cholera and collapse, killed him next day but one. On the 6th, the head of the house, the Mr. G. who had suffered at Weymouth, and had ever since had relaxed bowels, got a very acute new attack, and died after 15 hours. On the same day his son was attacked with diarrhoea, and next day was in collapse, but rallied, and finally got well. Also on the 6th, the grandmother of the house was similarly attacked; and she, though she emerged from collapse, eventually died on the 14tl). On the 10th, a woman living near by, whose only known connexion with the above cases was that on the 8th she had assisted in laying out the dead body of the above-mentioned labourer, was taken, with choleraic purging, which soon led to collapse, and next day to death. Thus, within a fortnight, in that one little circle, eleven persons had been attacked with cholera,—mother, father, grandmother, two daughters, son, doctor, serving-lad, servant, maid, labourer, and country-woman ; and of these 11, only three survived—the son, a daughter, and the serving-lad. Later, in the country-woman's family, there was another fatal case. It cannot Avell be doubted but that the exciting cause of this succession of events was, in some way or other, the return of the parents from Weymouth—of the father with remains of choleraic diarrhoea still on him, of the mother with apparently the beginnings of the same complaint. But this is only part of the case, and the remainder teaches an impressive lesson. Ail drinking-water of the house came from a well beneath the floor of the scullery; and into that well there was habitual soakage from the water-closet. Whether, in intimate pathology, there are any essential differences between the cholera which kills on a large scale! and the cholera which kills single victims, is hitherto so entirely unknown, that it Avould be idle to discuss, as a separate question, whether the G. illness, contracted at Weymouth and carried to Epping, was epidemic or sporadic, Asiatic or English, cholera; and as above stated, I cannot jsrove it to have been an olfshoot of the Southampton epidemic, or otherwise of Mediterranean origin. Certain, therefore, only is this :—that from the time when Mr. and Mrs. G. returned ailing to their home, the discharges which passed from their bowels gave an additional and peculiar taint to the already foul water-supply of their household, and that thenceforth everyone Avho drank water in the house drank water which had in it the ferment of decomposing diarrhoeal matters. In relation to these, on the whole, inconsiderable manifestations of e]Hdemic cholera in England, proceedings under directions of the Lords of the Council were taken as](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24751388_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
