On the physical causes of the high rate of mortality in Liverpool : read before the Literary and Philosophical Society, in February and March, 1843 / by W.H. Duncan.

  • William Henry Duncan
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the physical causes of the high rate of mortality in Liverpool : read before the Literary and Philosophical Society, in February and March, 1843 / by W.H. Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    by deteriorating the general health of the inhabitants in such a way as to render them more prone to the attacks of nearly all diseases, but more particularly of the specific disease alluded to, and also of those organs which feel the first brunt of the poison, i. e. the organs of respiration. The disease I refer to is Fever,—the common fever of this country, which may be taken as a generic term, in- cluding the varieties known as typhus, synochus, low adynamic fever, brain fever, nervous fever, &c., and which I shall presently show to be the characteristic disease of the poor of Liverpool. With regard to one, at least, of the conditions noticed, i. e. the congregation of the inhabi- tants within small and pent-up areas, where the means of ventilation are denied, (and where, as I formerly observed, the atmosphere is vitiated not by their respiration only, but by the poisonous emanations which arise from their bodies,) there can be little doubt as to its being an efficient cause of fever, the fact being established by the concurrent testimony of nearly every medical writer of repute. The operation of this cause, in its highest intensity, is shewn in the case of the Black Hole of Calcutta, where, out of 146 human beings who were confined within a space of about 5000 cubic feet, not more than twenty-three survived the night, and these “were said to have been afterwards at- tacked with a fever analogous to typhus.” The same cause acting in a less concentrated form, produces the same ef- fects, more slowly, it is true, but not the less surely, in the “black holes,”—the crowded courts, and cellars, and lodging-houses,—with which Liverpool abounds. I could give many examples in proof of this, were it not a matter so notoriously admitted, both in theory and in fact, that it would be a needless occupation of your time to do so. One or two instances are mentioned in my Report to the Poor-Law Commissioners on the sanitary condition of Liverpool, in which are also introduced some other parti- culars and illustrations of the subject, which 1 have there- fore abstained from repeating here. Formerly,—before
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