Dr. Ballard's report to the local goverment board upon an outbreak of diphtheria in a cottage adjoining the churchyard at Trotterscliffe near Wrotham, Kent.

  • Ballard, Edward.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Ballard's report to the local goverment board upon an outbreak of diphtheria in a cottage adjoining the churchyard at Trotterscliffe near Wrotham, Kent. 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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    the joists laid upon the earth, which was damp but not offensive. There were numerous mouse-holes and mouse-runs visible beneath this plank and against the wall. The dotted line in d shows where the plank was raised. The sink h has only been used, it is said, for washing and other inoffensive domestic slops; chamber slops were always carried to the privy. The strainer indicated was without any bell trap, and the water ran through it into a vertical 4^-inch salt-glazed pipe which communicated through the wall below with a similar socketed pipe laid about a foot beneath the surface of the ground, and which ran uninterruptedly a distance of 50 feet, as shown by the dotted line, to its outfall about one foot above the surface of the field on to which it discharged its contents. The fall in the course of this 50 feet is 31 feet. The pipe, where I examined it near the house, was free from deposit. There was no catchpit in its course. The cupboard I is a deal painted cupboard with shelves, and has been habitually used to contain the food of the family. It is a very old con- struction, a good deal decayed in the back part and sides, where there are mouse-holes, some of which had been covered with a plate of tin nailed over them and one of which had been stopped with a cork, but there were still openings by which mice could get in. I had this cupboard pulled out from the corner. Behind it were black sooty cobwebs which had entangled various dusty matters, and there was also mouse-dung. In the floor behind was a large mouse-hole. The interior of the cupboard had a disagreeable smell. Prior to the illnesses about to be described, the family of Mr. Jones, who is farm bailiff to Mr. Pine, had suffered no serious illness, and on September 28th consisted of the following persons, viz.:— Mr, Jones “ aged 49 years. Mrs. Jones 42 99 James “ >5 17 99 Ann Elizabeth ” jy 15 99 Sarah Ann “ 99 13 99 Emily “ 99 9 99 Edwin 99 8 99 Edith - “ 99 7 99 William Henry - 99 6 99 Mary » “ 99 4 99 Ellen 99 3 99 Thomas Frederick 99 1 year 11 months. Madeleine 1 , • Winifred ) *” 99 3 months. Mr. Jones, who is “ asthmatic” and cannot sleep in the recumbent posture, habitually sleeps in an easy chair in one of the ground-floor rooms. The other members of the family slept at night distributed in the upstair rooms, as follows :— In /. Mrs. Jones, the twins and either Ellen or Thomas, together in one bed. In g. James, Edwin, and William Henry in one bed. In h. Sarah, Emily, and either Ellen or Thomas in one bed, and Ann Elizabeth, Edith, and Mary in another bed. The dimensions of h, the ventilation of which room was exceptionally defective, are 15 X 13 X 7 feet = 1365 cubic feet = 227 feet per head. So much for the house—now for its surroundings. The locality represented on the plan No. 1 is lower considerably than the village situated about one furlong to the westward (the parsonage and its grounds intervening). The soil on the surface is dry, with chalk a few feet below it. The lowest spot in the immediate vicinity of the cottage is the duck-pond and the ground at the rear of the granary where water commonly lies, as represented on the plan. It is on to this part that the drain from the cottage discharges. There is a channel (now choked up with offensive sewage deposit) leading from the drain outlet by the side of the wall of the cart-shed to the duck-pond, but the ground all about this corner of the field is sodden with sewage and devoid of grass. A row of tall trees bounds the roadway to the east. The whole locality is low and habitually damp. But there is lower land still to the south of the bend of the road. The granary is overrun with rats which have burrowed from it beneath the floor of the cart-shed, and