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21
All the inmates of the place, complain of sickness and headache'
and a woman employed to wash clothes on the premises, was'
from the effect of the stench, suddenly seized with vomiting and
purging, and forced to leave her work. She was in perfect
health on entering the locality. Two children died in this house
during the summer from diarrhcea. This nuisance requires
immediate remedy.
No. 2, Albert-place, Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 15, Bedford-place,
and No. 15, Lower Neptune-street, are cases of imperfect
drainage, and full cesspools. Although the mortality of the last
month be considerably under the average, thirty-one deaths only
having been registered, the Parish of Rotherhithe is hardly so
healthy as it was in September. One death from hooping-cough
and three from fever being recorded. Measles too, have re-appeared
; a woman of Hanover-street, brought the disease with
her from Kent, where she had been hopping ; and from Hanoverstreet
it has spread into the neighbouring districts of Swan-lane
and Clarence-street. No fatal case has yet occurred. No death
has been registered from scarlatina, smallpox, or diarrhoea. A
lad, aged 18, died a few days ago from cholera in twelve hours,
on board the Swedish Ship, "Sophia," lying in the Commercial
Docks. She came from Gottenberg. The cholera has always
been brought into Great Britain from the Baltic Ports, and seamen
on shipboard in vessels from these Ports lying in the
Thames or Docks, have mostly, hitherto, been among the first
attacked.
Of the remote cause of cholera we know nothing, nor has
science as yet unravelled the essential nature of ii, or the reason
why it always travels in one direction from east to west. But
of the means of preventing cholera, much is known. There are
certain circumstances favourable to its development, receptive
influences, as they have been justly called, and where these are
wanting, the disease either does not appear at all, or exercises
more mildly its baneful influence. These may be called proximate
causes, and are quite under human control; they relate
either to the locality or to the individual.
In regard to locality, bad drainage, and bad water, are universally
acknowledged to be the circumstances most propitious
to the birth and propagation of cholera. In Rotherhithe, the
drainage is better, and the water supply of purer quality than
they have ever hitherto been, therefore, we are better prepared
to receive the pestilence than heretofore. It were useless to
repeat my previous reports by exhibiting to you how much these
receptive influences gave, in this Parish, quite different characters
to the epidemics of 1849 and of 1854.
With regard to the individual, I can only say that the best