Dr. S. Monckton Copeman's report to the Local Government Board on an outbreak of typhus fever in the Wigan and Ince-in-Makerfield urban sanitary districts / [S.M.C.].

  • Copeman, S. Monckton (Sydney Monckton), 1862-
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. S. Monckton Copeman's report to the Local Government Board on an outbreak of typhus fever in the Wigan and Ince-in-Makerfield urban sanitary districts / [S.M.C.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    OFFICIAL COPY. Dr. S. Monckton Copeman’s Report to the Local Govern¬ ment Board on an Outbreak of Typhus Fever in the Wigan and Ince-in-Makerfleld Urban Sanitary Districts. R. Thorne Thorne, Medical Officer, October 5th, 1892. It having come to the knowledge of the Board, through the Quarterly Return of the Registrar-General, that at Wigan an epidemic of typhus fever had broken out which had been the cause of several deaths during the last quarter of 1891, an inquiry was ordered into the circumstances of the outbreak, and I was directed to make it. Wigan Urban Sanitary District is an iron, brass, and cotton manufacturing town in Lancashire of about 50,000 inhabitants, in an important coal district, several collieries being located actually in the town itself. On arriving at Wigan I at once put myself in communication with the officers of the Sanitary Authority, and soon learned that up to the date of my visit above 70 cases of typhus had occurred in the town and neighbourhood, and that 10 of them had proved fatal. Also I learned that the outbreak of fever had been almost entirely confined to a portion of the town called Scholes, situated in the St. Patrick’s Ward. Accordingly I visited this neighbourhood, with the object of making a thorough inquiry into the sani¬ tary conditions of the affected area. And here I found that the knowledge of the Inspector of Nuisances (Mr. Sumner) was of great value to me, this officer being fully acquainted with the local circumstances of the various districts under his charge. In St. Patrick’s Ward, which is not inaptly named seeing that the greater number of the inhabitants are of Irish extraction, are to be found the worst slums in Wigan ; this portion of the town containing a number of courts, the houses in which, as will be seen from the accompanying plan, are in many instances built “ back-to-back.” Houses of this class each contain for the most part three small rooms; a single room on the ground floor, opening directly to the court or street, used as kitchen, living, and sleeping room, and other two sleeping rooms, on the floor above, com¬ municating with one another. Owing to the method of their construction (back-to-back), the only means of securing ventilation for many houses is by means of a window (generally securely fastened up) in each room, and by the street door of the lower room. At the same time the floor and cubic space of the living room are considerably encroached upon by a large bed, often of the four-poster type, which accommodates several members of the family at night. Furniture of other kinds, however, for the most part there is none, beyond, perhaps, a small table and a broken chair. Not infrequently there is an additional room below the level of the street, at onetime used for a weaver’s loom, which being no longer put to this purpose, is time after time made a convenient receptacle for the disposal of cinders LONDON: PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE, BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTT. And to be purchased, either directly or through any Bookseller, from EYRE and SPOTTISWOODE, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, E.C. JOHN MENZIES & Co., 12, Hanover Street, Edinburgh, and 90, West Nile Street, Glasgow; or HODGES, FIGGIS, & Co., Limited, 104, Grafton Street, Dublin. No. 64. 1892. Price One Shilling.