View report page

REPORT.
To the Board of Works for the Hackney District.
Gentlemen,
In consequence of Typhoid Fever having occurred in several localities
of your District, I am induced to lay before you some of the details connected
with the different cases. The worst outbreak was that which
appeared in the vicinity of the Tottenham Road, on the confines of this
and of the Islington District.
The first case appeared in the Middleton Road, in the house of a baker
who was employed in Islington district, at a shop where there was a large
cesspool which frequently smelt badly. Soon after his attack, and long
before his death, a case occured in the baker.s house, then two in the
adjoining Public house, in which were accumulations of stable manure
which smelt very badly. All these cases proved fatal. At the house in
Middleton Road three deaths happened, viz., that of the father, of the
eldest daughter, and eldest son. The house in the Middleton Road was
well drained, but, on carefully examining it, I found an untrapped sink.
stone from which the Widow stated that a bad smell frequently came.
The house itself was not clean, and was somewhat overcrowded, but not
sufficiently so to admit of your interference.
At all the other cases in the neighbourhood I found stinking privies,
untrapped drains, and otherwise defective sewerage.
I have also visited several localities in which the same kind of fever
broke out ; and in all cases, except one, I found open privies, or untrapped
drains, through which disgusting odours made their way into
the house. The way in which fever occurred in one house here, and
another there, was worthy of notice, being quite distinct from the course
which typhus fever would have pursued.
I would also remark, as a statement has appeared in the "Times"
Newspaper, that this variety of Typhoid Fever is not contagious, that
the mode in which it has spread in the district proves quite the contrary.
In one case a child first showed symptoms of the disease, and as the