Sanitary measures and their results : being a sequel to "The history of cholera in Exeter in 1832," to which is now added a short account of its occurance in 1849 / by Thomas Shapter, M.D.

  • Thomas Shapter
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanitary measures and their results : being a sequel to "The history of cholera in Exeter in 1832," to which is now added a short account of its occurance in 1849 / by Thomas Shapter, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    largei' proportion of persons attacked were those living iu the low parts of the city, their houses being dirty and ill venti- lated, and presenting the general conditions which, as ex- perience fully shows, under other circumstances, usually pre- dispose to malignant and fatal disease. Drinking Though there was no evidence of the drinking water being Water. • i • i i infected, inasmuch as the river, which flows through Exeter, proceeds from places which had not experienced the disease, yet, the baneful influence of living near the water was, in , ] 849, more exclusively remarkable than in the epidemic of 1832; for out of the 92 cases that occurred between the 19th i of July and the 29th of October, in the whole of Exeter, 55 lived immediately contiguous to the mill stream which flows through the lower part of the city; and of these latter 26 died, while, of the remaining 47 cases, and which occurred . beyond its influence, only 17 died. As one of the large sewers of the city empties itself into this stream, the above undn mortality was deemed worthy of special investigation, and the subject was accordingly referred, by the Local Sanitary Committee, for consideration, to a committee of the chief: Medical men of the city. These gentlemen, after well weigh- - ing all the attendant circumstances, came to the conclusion that this larger proportion of sickness and death was not' due to the admixture of sewage matter ; and for the following : reasons : from the rapidity of the stream the amount of sewage matter is proportionately small, and therefore, from dilution, innocuous ; from the disease neither primarily, nor: even subsequently, showing itself particularly in the imme- diate locality of the opening of the sewer, but, having com- menced low down the stream, and, as it were, spread. upwards; and from its water being never used by people • living in the neighbourhood for any cuhnary purpose. The ' medical men attributed the greater proportion of disease to the accompanying fogs and dampness, rather than to anv other mode of operation.* * In tlie discussion on the PoUution of Eivers, at the Social ycionce Congress (5th Oct., 1866) some observations made hy Mr. Kawlinson may be ■