Oxford Mr. Perry, who treated 200 cases, says "in the great majority the attack was referrible to foul air in their dwellings, or to their being employed in cleansing drains and gully-holes, or to intercourse with sick." The disease confined to the lower classes, and to the more wretched, filthy, and worst-ventilated districts. It has prevailed fearfully in some localities in connection with crowded dirty rooms, bad air, low living, vice, and wretchedness.-Dr. Rae. The worst cases in the narrowest and dirtiest streets. -Dr. Moore. Where the worst nuisances, foul ash-pits, deficient drainage, filthy privies, and cesspools existed, there it was found that Cholera was at hand (a plan given). In the same locality, chiefly Typhoid Fever, Scarlatina, epidemic Catarrh, Diarrhoea, &c., prevail, and are more obstinate. All the cases in a locality of which the drainage is very bad.-Dr. Black. Places badly drained and ill ventilated.—Mr. Stewart and Mr. Jolly. Speedwell Street was remarkable for violence and con(Dr. Kidd, Mr. T. Allen.) centration of the Cholera outbreak, and for its apparent Place and Reporter. Gloucester (Mr. Hicks.) Tewkesbury. (Dr. Viner Beadle.) Holyhead (Rev. C. Williams and Mr. Walthew.) Bridgenorth.... Stockport. (Dr. Rayner.) Manchester (Dr. Pincoff.) Chorlton upon Medlock.. (Dr. Pincoff.) Bolton (Dr. Black, Mr. Snape, and Mr. Livy.) Liverpool (Dr. Dickinson, Dr. Burgess, and Mr. Taylor.) The Workhouse Preston....... (Dr. Fearnside.) Lancaster (Mr. J. J. Harrison.) Local Circumstances. Principal localities, "Sweet-briars," badly drained. Most fatal in ill-ventilated, ill-drained, and lowest parts, with no privies or drains save the common gutter (instances are given). Great severity of disease, limited to a rather narrow spot, on a very low level. No other apparent local cause. In almost every case some special circumstance as to filth, bad drainage, &c. In several are open gratings of a drain before the door or window. The greater comparative mortality in certain situations shows that intemperance, impure air, low, damp situations, accumulations of filth and decomposing animal and vegetable matters, predispose to the epidemic, and add to severity of the disease. Localities tolerably well drained, but as bad as possible as regards supply of water, density of population, ventilation, and cleanliness. Elevation, drainage, supply of water, and density of population favourable, though in two or three of the infected localities the cleanliness was deficient. All parts of the town became affected, and frequently the (apparently) most healthy places.-Dr. Black. Deficient ventilation, damp, and foul air have appeared to exert little influence.-Mr. Snape. All the cases under my observation, with two exceptions, in midst of bad drainage, insufficient ventilation, and filth.-Mr. Livy. The disease confined for most part to the worst-ventilated, low, and ill-ventilated (drained?) courts. The worst-ventilated, damp, and overcrowded lodging-houses sometimes alone attacked. The establishment cleanly and well ventilated. In many instances (some cited) the local causes were such as must have predisposed to Cholera. Streets generally confined, ill drained, and dirty, in which fatal cases occurred. Some lines of streets in the best localities escaped, though no large portion of the town was exempt. Wakefield. Local Circumstances. Cases in the town confined to the filthiest parts. Limited to ill-drained localities at first, but on its acquiring greater malignancy, not one street in the town unvisited by it. Several cases in different parts of the town at a distance from the drains. The part where Cholera was most prevalent and (Mr. Statter and Dr. fatal was a low, close, dirty street, of bad repute in all Wright.) respects, full of depôts of filth and manure, without any sewerage, and with few surface drains. After these streets were cleansed the disease subsided. With one or two exceptions, all persons attacked lived in cottages. No instance in which the residence of those attacked was in perfectly healthy situation, though thousands of people in similar and less favourable localities escaped. Wakefield Prison.. Cases confined to the Old Prison. Diarrhoea there (Messrs. Dunn and in larger proportion than in other parts of the establishment (see sanitary condition and site). Milner.) Wakefield Town (Mr. Statter.) Wakefield Lunatic Asylum. (Dr. Wright.) Rotherham (Dr. Shearman.) Sunderland (Dr. Brown.) In a village three miles from the town eight deaths occurred amongst 150 inhabitants, in eight or nine days; here animal and vegetable rubbish abounded, and when these were removed no more Cholera occurred. The greatest proportions of victims to Cholera (amongst the women) was in No. 1, 14, and 13 Wards, the two former very clean and orderly wards, and the last not particularly the reverse. In Male Wards, Cholera was most rife in Wards 3, 1, and 4, and in the basement story of men's eastern wing of old building; No. 3 is one of the receiving wards for dirty and refractory patients. It is on the ground floor. In the three other wards the chief appearance of ammoniacal vapour was detected. No. 4 was used as a Cholera Hospital at that time. No proportionate manifestation of noxious exhalation was remarked in other wards fatally visited by Cholera, and as many perished in No. 5 and in No. 6, where the ventilation is unexceptionable as in No. 1. Nowhere but in places notoriously filthy, ill ventilated, and not drained. The disease spread, as a general rule, more in the dirtier localities, but dirt is not essential to the diffusion of the disease. |