View report page

Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1863.
19
Trades are centred, there have but two deaths happened, one from Typhus, and one from
Convulsions. And what is still more remarkable, is, that whilst Cholera was ravaging
streets on every side, this almost, or altogether escaped. "Certain at least it is" writes
Dr. Greenhow, "that districts in which the most powerful putrid odours tainted the air,
have sometimes almost entirely escaped, while others contiguous to them have suffered
severely." The same facts have been observed in other countries, where the like circumstances
have prevailed. At Montfaucon, in Paris, where during forty years, 400,000 horses
were slaughtered, and 11,500,000 dogs and cats; a place, Parent Duchatelet describes, as
giving off from huge heaps of flesh left to putrify in the open air for months, as well as from
mountains of partially cleaned bones, and also from a soil sodden with blood and other
animal liquids, so horrible a stench, as to render it almost unapproachable to visitors,—yet,
even here there was a remarkable exemption from Cholera, whilst all "around was being
devastated by that fatal disease. The workmen, we are told, are hale and robust; and the
women who live on the premises or hard by, are said to enjoy the most excellent health,
and that they are remarkably prolific, giving birth to the finest and plumpest children; the
cradles for which are often the carcase of a horse. A father, the proprietor of one of the
establishments in Green Street, once pointed out to us his children, some of them grown up,
as shewing not only the harmlessness of these trades, but, as proving the beneficial effects
they produced upon the system. The workmen declare they are never ill, that they can eat
anything, and drink heartily; in truth, to give credence to all they say, we should be led to
believe that these were unrivalled health spots. Nevertheless, they do not pretend to deny that
bad smells abound; but the speaker will assert that it is his neighbour who is the cause. The
bone.boiler will point to the walls of the cat.gut maker, covered with myriads of blue.bottle
flies, their backs gleaming in the sunshine, and will say, "That it is from thence arises the
only source of complaint." Whilst, on the other hand, the cat.gut maker points to the thick
and fetid steam rising up from the seething cauldrons of the bone.boiler, and asks, "Do
you wish for farther evidence ? "My own experience, derived from repeated visits, is, that
the men and women employed are as healthy as many of those employed in labours considered
harmless. Dessault, a celebrated French anatomist, was wont to say, that he
really believed that the tainted air of the dissecting rooms saved him from attacks of epidemic,
and other diseases, of which those hospital surgeons and physicians who scarcely ever dissected
a dead body, seemed to be much more susceptible than himself. Having shortly,
but fairly, considered one side of the subject, let me in the same manner examine the other,
in order that we may arrive as near a truthful result as our present knowledge will permit
us, and thus be enabled to answer objections wisely. "When I was house surgeon at St.
Louis," says Dr. Bennett, "I several times remarked, that whenever the wind was from
the direction of the Montfaucon, the wounds and sores under my care assumed a foul aspect.
M. Jobert, the surgeon of the hospital, has told me he has repeatedly seen hospital gangrene
manifest itself in the wards apparently under the same influence. It was a fact
known to all who are acquainted with St. Louis, that the above malady is more frequent at
that hospital than at any other in Paris, although it is the most airy and least crowded of
any. This, I think, can only be attributed to the proximity of Montfaucon." A similar
result followed from a similar cause in Spitalfields from a manufactory of artificial manure,
situated oposite the workhouse. Whenever the wind blew from that quarter, numerous
cases of fever of a typhoid kind arose, and the diseases then prevalent took a typhoid form.