Report by Dr. R.J. Reece to the Local Government Board on smallpox and smallpox hospitals at Liverpool, 1902-1903.

  • Great Britain. Local Government Board.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report by Dr. R.J. Reece to the Local Government Board on smallpox and smallpox hospitals at Liverpool, 1902-1903. 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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    Table I, showing the Area in Acres, the Number o£ Inhabited and Uninhabited Houses, and of Houses building, in the City of Liverpool at the Census 1901 ; with like data for the Extended City, including Garston, as at LIBRARY ^g\present estimated 23JUL1965kl City of Liverpool. 1901 Census. 1901. (Including Garston.) [rea in acres (excluding half bed of River) ... J Number of inhabited houses Number of uninhabited houses in occupation ... Number of uninhabited houses not in occupation Number of houses building Population 13,236 123,469 6,752 4,328 920 685,276 14,909 129,2001 7,000 ^ 4,500 i-| 1,000 723,430 J Liverpool as a seaport town, attracting as it does a large number of persons of the working and vagrant classes from a great variety of sources at home and abroad, has been especailly prone to receive smallpox, and to a corresponding extent has had abundant opportunities of perfecting its administration in regard of this disease. In the dozen years preceding the epidemic of 1902-3 the number of cases of smallpox notified or discovered in Liverpool year by year was as follows :—* Year. Number. Year. Number. 1890 ... 2 1896 .. 8 1891 ... 21 1897 ... 6 1892 ... 177 1898 ... 17 1893 ... 75 1899 ... 10 1894 ... 229 1900 ... 156 1895 ... 130 1901 ... 37 Towards the end of the year 1901 there was practically no smallpox in Liverpool, but in the month of December smallpox was introduced to the City by way of the Port. At this time there was smallpox in Boston, U.S.A., from which place cattle ships trade regularly to Liverpool. Many of the cattlemen of these ships are not regularly employed by the ship-owners, and do not go back to America with the cattle ships on their return voyage. These men are furnished with return tickets, which they often sell in Liverpool, and then either work their passage back or join the loafers and tramp class in Liverpool. Men of this class con- tributed several of the imported cases of smallpox with which Liverpool had to deal in the year 1902. They introduced smallpox to several common lodging houses, and to certain streets in the poorer parts of the town, and to their agency the introduction of smallpox at the end of the year 1901 is in great measure due, though not entirely, as the disease was also carried to the town by tramps. Figures taken from the Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health.
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