Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town of Aylesbury / by William Ranger, Superintending Inspector.
- William Ranger
- Date:
- 1849
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town of Aylesbury / by William Ranger, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![montlis, whilst at Aylesbury it was 28 years and 3 moTiths, making 4 years and 7 months of difference to each individual dying. Every adult who died at Aylesbury above 20 years of age was cut off about two years sooner than at Wycombe. Taking the mere money estimate of ihe loss of working ability to each adult male or female at 7s. 6rf. per week, the money value of the lost labour of those that died within that one year was upwards of 8500/. But each case of premature mortality only represents 28 cases of sickness, an excess which would make the excess of sickness bill for that one year in Aylesbury, 1260Z. at 1/. per case. Added to this is the loss of 22,61. during the one year for an excess of funerals; taking the cost for each funeral at the average of bl., the total of these items. Lost labour, Excess of sickness. Excess of funerals, was during that year, 10,377/. On examining the mortuary registration, it appears that among the most prominent causes of mortality are the preventible causes of epidemic, endemic, and contagious disease. The attacks in the least unhealthy districts of England were 1 in 269 of the population; in Aylesbury, 1 in 156.—(See the Tables published by the Health of Towns Association.) Effects of the External Condition of Dwellings.—I found in this town as in others, an endemic tendency to stomach and bowel complaints in various localities, especially among the susceptible and poorer part of the population. Mr. Ceily, the medical officer, states:— When common diarrhoea and cholera prevail, they are prone to pass into dysentery or remittent fever, and these disorders and fever of a typhoid type may be regularly anticipated and do periodically occur, but not without extending to other parts of the town whenever the weather and season favour their return and propagation. Diarrhoea and dysen- tery are frequently complications of severe catarrhal and bronchial affections of winter and spring, in cold, wet, and stormy seasons. When the Asiatic cholera visited this town in the middle of June, 1832, no less than 61 deaths occurred in six weeks, the major part between the third and fourth visitation. This disease was preceded a few months by an epidemic and conta- gious erysipelas, with much mortahty. The Asiatic cholera commenced in those parts of the locahty which are most exposed to humidity and the production of malaria, such as Duck-end, where the principal part of the sewerage of the town terminates and open ditches existed, a laro-e surface of stagnant water, and where ducks and other live animals are ke])t in the dwellings and on the premises of the inhabitants. In 11 days it reached the central parts of the town, having previously advanced in different directions to the outskirts, where in the abodes of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20423858_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
