View report page

76
Tenements.—Out of the whole number, excluding common
lodging houses, 97 were one-roomed tenements, that is to say,
the patient and family lived and slept in one room only; 146 were
two-roomed tenements—the rest had three to eight rooms.
Twenty-one tenements were overcrowded.
It is difficult to conceive a condition which favours the spread
of infection more than overcrowding. In phthisical families the
abatement of overcrowding is insisted upon forthwith.
Fifty-three tenements had one cupboard only for food, clothes
and coal. Fourteen had no cupboard accommodation at all.
These are very unsatisfactory conditions for a phthisical household.
When the household utensils of the patient are kept in
the same cupboard as the other household utensils, when his
clothes are hung on the common peg, the spread of infection from
person to person is favoured. When, in addition to these, the
tenement is overcrowded, the conditions for promoting the spread
of the disease are as pernicious as they possibly can be.
Ninety-one tenements were on the list of houses-let-in- lodgings ;
sixty-seven tenements were in the so-called model buildings,
which, with their common landings and their many points of
contact between the families who occupy them, are only too well
adapted for the spread of phthisis.
Homework was carried on in eight tenements.
A sanitary survey was made of every tenement and the nuisances
found made the subject of subsequent notice.
The following defects were ascertained :—Insufficient lighting
65, insufficient headroom 56, dirty rooms 31, dilapidated floors
and roofs 8, verminous rooms 2, deficient ventilation 5, and
damaged waste-water preventer in one tenement.
The Patient's Bedroom.—The number of beds in the patient's
bedroom, the number of persons occupying the patient's bedroom
and the number of families affected are given in the attached
table.