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In the model lodging houses for families, in St. Giles's district, there were
in 1858, several zymotic diseases, and some of them were fatal to the children.
Though the number of cases was unusually large for these establishments, still the
actual amount was not so large as in the poor streets in the neighbourhood where less
attention is paid to the means of health. Whooping-cough, measles, and scarlatina,
were the diseases which produced death in the various model houses.
I have not this year made a particular examination of the diseases affecting
the inmates of common lodging houses. The number of registered houses in the district
has been increased by five, since the date of my general report, in 1857.
Chapter VI.—Sanitary operations of the Year 1858, comprising the Returns of the
Sanitary Inspector.
The sanitary work of 1858-9 has, of course, consisted in the main of improvemen
s in and abo it the houses of the district. Other measures have been
taken for the safety of the public health, and these will also he related. But none
are so important as those which relate to the dwellings of the people—and none have
engaged such unremitting attention.
Section I.—Improvement in the sanitary condition of houses has been of
course most needed in the poo'.er portions of the district, but very considerable scope
for amendment has been found in the mews adjoining the better streets and squares.
Moreover, in several instances, the services of the Sanitary Inspector has been required
in our very best houses. He has been in trumental in preserving the health
of Russell-square and Montague-place, as well as of Church-lane and Lincoln-court.
I am very anxious that the Insptctor should be more often applied to by
the upper classes. The sanitary defects most likely to exist about their dwellings
is bad drainage. When their homes were built the cesspool was, usually, the only
m ans of drainage, and in several very good streets it has not yet been wholly supe
seded. People trouble themselves too little about the drainage of their houses,—
bad smells are not noticed, or are satisfactorily accounted for by "the wind being in
a particular quarter." But there are found inexplicable ailments in the house; servants
lose their healthy looks and children droop. Or scarlatina, generated in the
unknown mews close by, affects the children, and assumes a serious type. Another
year diphtheritis is heard of, or typhoid fever appears—is called by some gentle
name of slow or bilious fever—and there are speculations how the disease can have
been "caught," and fears lest it should be "given" to others. It is important for
peopleto be well assured that, in he great majority of cases, such diseases as these
only exist, or only become serious by reason of some defective condition in the
dwelling house or n ighbourhood.
In a poor locality the existence of epidemic disease is used by the sanitary
officers as a guide to the existence of cesspools, Imperfect drainage, or other defective
arrangemen's. Very rarely, indeed, does the Inspector fail in discovering some such
cause for the prevailing disease. The wealthler and more intelligent classes should
provide for themselves the same security that we are attempting to obtain for the
poor, and should make themselves sure that the conditions which surround their
dwellings are the best adapted to health.