London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Hackney 1877

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]

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24
which however is in reality not a fresh case, as it had occurred,
although I was unacquainted with it, on the 8th instant."
" The history of the outbreak is as follows:—On February
16th three cases which terminated fatally occurred at Powell
Road, Warwick Road, and Clapton Common. Powell Road is
more than a mile away, Warwick Road half-a-mile, and the
Clapton Common case about a quarter-of-a-mile from the
accumulation at Craven Park; the only feature common to the
three being the state of the drainage arrangements which
allowed sewer gas to enter all the houses. On the 21st, another
case that terminated fatally occurred at Lea Bridge Road, within
a short distance of Powell Road. On February 28th, another
case terminating fatally happened at Clapton Common, and a
sixth on March 1st, at Warwick Road, which is the last case of
which I have any notice. It is, therefore, very evident that the
accumulation of house refuse at Craven's Park could not have
been the cause, as was believed, of the outbreak, and we must,
therefore, look elsewhere for it. I, therefore, directed one of the
Sanitary Inspectors to call at every house which I had not
visited, between the last house at Upper Clapton and Warwick
Road, when it was found including the houses in the last-named
road, and one other house in Downs Park Road, where a case
occurred, that out of 134 houses examined as many as 120 had
good drainage arrangements, whilst in 13 they were so imperfect
as to have a direct communication with the cisterns or wash
basins in the house, and in another house there was a water
closet opening directly into a passage in the basement which
smelt very badly, and was found to be imperfectly trapped. In
the 120 houses with good arrangements only 1 case occurred,
whilst in the 11 as many as 12 cases happened. A close
examination of the facts connected with the 14 houses, in which
defective arrangements were found, revealed this additional
information, viz.: that 4 drained into a different system of
sewers. No case occurred in the last-mentioned houses although