Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an inquiry into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain ; with appendices. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, July, 1842.
- Board of guardians
- Date:
- 1842
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an inquiry into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain ; with appendices. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, July, 1842. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![character of the poor man, and render him less susceptible to the allure- ments of the idle and wicked.” The tenor of much information respecting the condition of many of the labouring classes in Somerset, where the deaths from the four classes of disease were still higher than in the two other counties, and amounted during the one year to 5417, is exhibited in the sanitary report of Mr. James Gane, the medical officer of the Axbridge union, who states that,— “ The situation of this district where the diseases herein mentioned prevail, is a perfect flat called the South Marsh, in the main road between Bristol and Bridgewater. There are numerous dykes or ditches for the purpose of drainage. The cottages of the poor are mostly of a bad de- scription, frequently mud wall, and often situated close to the dykes, where the water for the most part is in a state, of stagnation. Ol'ten- t times not more than one room for the whole family; sometimes two; one above the other; with the really poor, the latter is seldom to be met with, (unless it should happen now and then in a parish where a poor- house was built a short time before the formation of the Union). A pig- sty where the inmates are capable of keeping a pig is frequently at- tached to the dwelling, and in the heat of summer produces a stench quite intolerable; the want of space however prevents it being other- wise. The regular poor-house (those mentioned above being detached cottages) in most of the parishes in this district are of a much worse description, several large families existing under the same roof, occupy- ing only one room each family, and having but one entrance door to the dwelling; here filth and poverty go hand-in-hand without any restriction and under no control. The accumulation of filth being attributable to the want of proper receptacles for refuse, and the indolent and filthy disposition of the inhabitants, in no instance have such places been pro- vided. The floors are seldom or never scrubbed; and the parish autho- rities pay so little attention to these houses, that the walls never get white-limed from one end of the year to the other. The windows are kept air-tight by the stufifing of some old garments, and every article for use is kept in the same room. The necessary is close to the building, where all have access, and producing a most intolerable nuisance. In a locality naturally engendering malaria, the diseases with which the poor are for the most part afflicted are, fevers such as are stated in this report and which sometimes run into a low' typhoid state. The neighbourhood in general is considered in as good a state of drainage as it will admit of. The occurrence of disease among the poor population is for the most part at spring and autumn, at those times agues and fevers prevail. Small- pox and scarlet fever are met with at all seasons of the year, but prevail as epidemics, the former in spring and summer, and the latter about autumn or the beginning of w'inter. I attribute the prevalence of dis- eases of an epidemic character, which exists so much more among the ])oor than among the rich, to be, from the want of better accommodation as residence, (their dwelling instead of being built of solid materials are complete shells of mud on a spot of waste land the most sw'ampy in the parish, this is to be met with almost everywhere in rural districts,) to the want of better clothing, being better fed, more attention paid to the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21365143_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
