Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon a prevalence of typhoid fever locally ascribed to certain slaughter-house premises at New Brighton, near Birkenhead.

  • Spear, John.
Date:
1889
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon a prevalence of typhoid fever locally ascribed to certain slaughter-house premises at New Brighton, near Birkenhead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was really one of fever. Then, on July 28th, a boy who lived a little further off in Richmond Terrace, but who had since July 4th slept at No. 5, where the first of these cases occurred (in January 1887), sickened of the disease. There were thus, during the two years, in this immediate locality five cases of fever in four families, and, without including the washerwoman in Balmoral Road, two attacks in individuals employed there during the day. The butcher’s family, comprising eight persons living on the premises, were unaffected. In Balmoral Road a small grouping of cases has _ likewise been spoken of. It is situated On the other side of the main street (Victoria Road), and extends from 100 to 200 yards from the slaughter-house. Of the 20 houses on the south side of the street, four have been infected by typhoid fever during the last two years—one in December 1886, one in January 1887 (the case of the washerwoman above referred to), one in May 1887, and one in November 1888. I am informed by a medical man who practises largely in the locality that this row of dwellings has been a favourite habitat of other infectious diseases. In Victoria Terrace, Egerton Street, two adjacent houses were infected in 1887, and one of them was again the seat of the disease in 1888. They are situated some 150 yards from the slaughter-house. No doubt this district of New Brighton is somewhat more than usually subject to the importation of disease, but, so far as inquiries showed, in only one of the list of cases given above was reasonable cause found for concluding that the disease had been imported from without. The tendency to grouping too observed above, and to the recurrence of the disease in the same locality in successive years, implies some local continuing cause. There is no sufficient evidence therefore for regarding the slaughter-house as the origin of the fever prevalence. It is not an accurate representation of the facts to say that “ the neighbourhood was free from fever previous to “ slaughtering, since then it has not been clear except from October 1887 to “ June 1888, when slaughtering was not allowed.” Of any indirect and subsidiary agency it is much more difficult to speak. Undoubtedly the slaughter-house has contributed with several other conditions to vitiate the atmosphere of its immediate vicinity, and we have abundant evidence that the contagia are apt to thrive in media polluted by decomposing animal matters. The Water Supply of New Brighton is that common to the whole district, and is pumped from wells in the New Red Sandstone. The supply is on the constant system, but during the autumn of 1888, owing to the relaying of the mains, considerable intermission in the service to the streets of New Brighton was necessary. There appears no ground for suspecting that the fever prevalence was related to the water supply. As to the Milk Supply also the facts afforded no evidence of extension of fever by that means. Sewerage and Drainage.—The greater part of New Brighton drains to a sewer which passes down Victoria Road (the main street) to an outlet into the sea at low-water mark. Several of the branches of this sewer are ventilated by open man-holes, and pipe ventilators to private drains are in other places improperly relied upon as a means of sewer ventilation, but in the sewer itself no opening for this purpose is provided in the last 600 yards at least of its course along the Victoria Road. [The Surveyor tells me that-originally there was an objection to the provision of openings here, owing to the amount of loose sand of which the surface of the ground is composed, but that, now that the land is mostly built upon, this difficulty is removed.] The defect is probably the more serious as twice every day the sewer for a short distance at least is tide-locked. Certain of the branch sewers are likewise un¬ ventilated. This is the case with the one draining the south side of Balmoral Road, where, as I have said, fever has made its appearance at intervals during the last two years ; the private drains here are ventilated only by rain-water spouts, they are connected directly with the public sewers, and I heard several complaints of the escape of foul air from yard gullies and other drain openings. Although the Authority have done much of late years to remedy defects of private drainage, the conditions are still in a large number of instances exceedingly unsatisfactory. Drains are commonly carried beneath the floors