First report of the commissioners appointed to inquire whether any and what special means may be requisite for the improvement of the health of the metropolis : with minutes of evidence.
- Great Britain. Metropolitan Sanitary Commission
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: First report of the commissioners appointed to inquire whether any and what special means may be requisite for the improvement of the health of the metropolis : with minutes of evidence. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![Whei-e the Deaths from Fever tlie most numerous, Mr. Hooper* being asked, Have you any instance in your district (Soutliwark), in which improved drainage, supply of water, and ventilation, have been followed by a diminished susceptibility to epidemic disease, answers, I am sorry to say that 1 know of no places in which any material improvement of any kind has taken place: in regard to drainage, supply of water, and venti- lation, the district remains in the same wretched state. Mr. Leadara describes some of the places in his district (St. John's district, Horsleydown), as being at the present moment nests of filth. Accumulations of filth and of decaying vege- table matter cast out fi-om the houses lie about in front of them. Many houses have no outlet, no privies, and those that have are connected with cesspools. Fever is never absent from these places ] they are pests to the neighbourhood. With all this as a foundation, he adds, we could hardly anticipate the approach of cholera, but with feelings of alarm, as it was in those localities that the cholera of 1832 so extensively prevailed; and these localities are worse, from the time that has elapsed, than they were then ; no improvement is visible in any of those places which lie out of the main street; and even in the main street close by my own house, namely, at No. 9, Bermondsey-street, that house and the half-dozen adjoining houses are a disgrace to any main street. We have received from the Council Office, through Sir William Pym, a return, which we subjoin, of the total number of cholera cases in the metropolis, reported to the Board of Health in 1832. This return we have compared with a return of the number of deaths from fever in 1838, which was the first year in which a return was made, under the new registration, of the causes of death; and it was a year in which fever was epidemic. The examination of this Return will illustrate the general coincidence of the cholera track with the track of typhus of which the witnesses have spoken from particular cases within their own observation. On comparing in the 30 metropolitan districts (see Table HI.), the proportion of deaths to the population from fever and from cholera, it appears that, in the districts where die deaths from fever were the highest, cholera was the most pre- valent and fatal. This is shown among others by the returns from St. George's-in-the-East, Bermondsey, Southwark, Lambeth, Whitechapel, Stepney, and Bethnal Green. In some of these places, it will be seen, that the deaths from fever and cholera were nearly equal, as in Whitechapel. In other places, the excess on the side of cholera was somewhat greater; as in Bermondsey, Southwark, and Lambeth. But, on the other hand, there were places in which the deaths from fever absolutely exceeded those from cholera, as in Holborn, where the deaths from fever were 1 in 227, whereas from cholera they were only 1 in 594. In St. Pancras they were still further in excess, the deaths in this district from fever being 1 in 269, from cholera 1 in 933, and in](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21296935_0042.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
