[Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Leeds City.

  • Leeds City Council
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Leeds City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    128/182 (page 118)
    IIS Severed and not severed (inside w.c.’s ignored).—Of the 5,386 houses examined, 3,174 (given on the left hand page), that is to say, 58*9 per cent, had all their wastes (except the soil pipe of an inside water closet) disconnected; while 2,212 (on the right hand page), or 41*1 per cent., either had no drain at all, or had some waste not severed from the sewer. The corresponding numbers for the two previous years, in the slightly altered table, were 52*9 and 47'L Were the two tables stVictly comparable, one would regard the difference in the percentages as a sign of improvement in the house conditions of the town.* Defects found in severed and non-severed houses.—Of the 3,174 houses with severed drains 7-8 per cent, had some drain defect discovered on examination. Of the 2,212 in which the drains were not severed, 237 per cent, had some defect. These numbers, however, are not quite comparable with those given in the text of the report for last year. If stated in the same manner, we should now put it that of the 58'93 per cent. “ severed ” in 479 there was an obvious defect, and that this was the case in 8*93 out of the 40*27 not severed. The remaining O'So represents the houses without drain.t It may be well to repeat what was said on page 100 in that report that in saying an obvious defect we are “ not excluding defects found on testing, but, as testing was done in a comparatively small number of the houses examined, it did not control the result.” * Extracting from the tables in the appendix to last year’s report the diseases included in the table for 1899, it will be found that of 8,900 case-houses visited in 1897 and 1898, 53'2 per cent, were “severed,” 45*9 “not severed,” o-9 had no drain. So that in the same class of houses we have a gain of 10 per cent, in the greater number of severed drains amongst those examined last year as compared with the two previous ones. t Drain testing has been more vigorous in 1899, the comparison of defects found in the two classes of houses is not therefore quite fair. Omitting diseases not tabled this year, it will be found that the 53’2 per cent, of severed houses in 1897 and 1898 was made up of 27 in which drain defect was found, and 504 in which it was not— the 45'9 not severed, of 6-o where defect was discovered. 39'9 where it was not— probably in many cases because it was not properly looked for. The remaining o'9 of undrained houses is not altered.