The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-07 00:00:00

NUMBER OF DEATHS FROM AI•L CAUSES REGISTERED

IN THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, OCT. 3.

Zymotic Diseases

Diseases of Uncertain Seat

. 243

Tubercular Diseases
Diseases of the Brain, Nerves and Senses
Diseases of the Heart and Blood-vessels 5O
Diseases of the Lungs and other Organs of
Respiration . 125
Diseases of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs
of Digestion
Diseases of the Kidneys, &c.
Childbirth, Diseases of the Uterus, &c. .. 6
Diseases of the Joints, Bones, and Muscles 3
Diseases of the Skin, &c.
Malformations 1
Premature Birth and Debility 3O
Atrophy
Old Age
sudden .. 14
Violence, Privation, Cold, and Intemperance 129
Causes not specified

DEATHS FROM ALL CAUSES
Population Deaths in corre- Deaths
Enumerated. sponding week In the
1851. of 1856. Week.
West Districts
North Districts 490,396
Central Districts 393,256
East Districts 485,522
South Districts

1,071

Totals
Males
Fomales
BIRTHS IN THE WEEK.

Males
Females..

1,087
588
490

Total

SANITARY STATE OF TUE CITY.

Yesterday, at the City Court of Sewers, Dr.
Letheby, the medical officer of health, presented
his weekly report, from which the following is an
extract :

THE NUISANCE ON THE WASTE GROUND OF NSW
VICTORIA-STREET.

"A letter has been received from the board of works
of the Holborn district, containing an extract from a
recent report of their medical officer of heelth. It is
to the effect that last spring he directed the attention
of the board to a very great nuisance caused by large
accumulations of putrifying animal and vegetable re-
fuse upon the waste ground between Saffron-hill and
Cow-cross. The City authorities, to whom the pro-
perty belongs, at once took active measures to abate
the nuisance, and much good was thereby accom-
plished. He now complains of a large and offensive
pool of stagnant water on a piece of ground between
St. Peter's Church and the lower part of Vine-street.
" This complaint has been submitted to me for inves-
tigation, and in reporting of it I think it hardly neces-
sary that I should occupy your time with anything more
than a very general description of the barren waste upon
which the offensive thing stands.
"Years ago, a large tract of land, extending from
Holborn to Clerkenwell, crowded with the worst dens of
the metropolis, and haunted by poverty and crime, was
cleared of its wretched habitations to make way for the
new street that now traverses it from end to end. That
a great public improvement was effected by this clear-
ance there can be no doubt, but it remains for the future
to have it fully realised, for at present as the rubbish of
old buildings was first heaped together, so it now
stands, and where the pits were dug to reach the deep
foundation, there they stilt remain ; in point Of fact,
except for the rich contributions that have been fre-
quently made to the refuse of the place by the coster-
mongers, the oyster-dealers, and thecountless poor of the
neighbourhood, the ground is in pretty much the same
condition as when the last house in the old colony was
levelled. The condition of the surface is very favourable
for the collection of stagnant water and the formation
of offensive pools, such as now the subject of complaint.
There can be no doubt of their unwholesome influence
and of the necessity for removing them.
"Another source of annoyance, to the neighbourhood
is the disgusting way in which the dry arches of the
new street are used. Hundreds of these arches line the
two sides of the road, and form the boundary of the
barren waste to which I have been alluding. By day
they are the resort of per,ons who ;e conduct is offen•
sive to public decency, and by night they are tenanted
by wretched outcasts who can procure no better shelter.
I wish indeed they had no worse occupants for upon
the City side of this locality we have long since found
it necessary to fill the arches up. I therefore recom-
mend not only that the surface of the vacant ground
should be made level and the ditches filled in, but also
that the police who aro on duty there, and the keeper
of the ground who is employed by the corporation should
be instructed to prevent any improper use of the open
arches.
"And now that I am reporting of waste „;round, I am
desirous of directing your attention to several places
within the City, where the inhabitants aro accustomed

to deposit their trade refuse, and thus to be a constant
source of annoyance to the neighbourhood and expense
to the commission. One of these is in Angel-alley,
Bishopsgs,te-street. It is a large space of unclaimed
ground, that bas be converted into a common laystall.
At the present time nit contains some hundred tons of
rubbish, besides many cartloads of oyster shells that have
been recently deposited there. Another such a place is
in Willis's-court, Brackley-street ; a third in Half-moon-
alley, Little Moorfields ; a fourth in Featherbed-hill,
Moor-lane ; and a fifth in Sussex-place, Leadenhall-
street. If these places could be cleared and then paved
over, or even if they could be boarded in, the nuisances
would be abated and the commission would annually-
save a sum of money which they now pay to the sca-
vengers for carting the refuse away.
" As to the water supply of Thompson-court that was
referred to me for examination at the last meeting of the
commission, I have to report that in the month of Nov.,
1853, orders were given to the landlord to provide cis-
terns for the supply of the six houses in the court. He
then erected three tanks over the closets of the alter-
nate houses. Theee tanks will hold about 450 gallons
of water- But this quantity is not sufficient for the 119
inhabitants of the court, besides which the cisterns are
so placed as to receive the offensive effluvium from the
closets, and the water is thereby rendered unfit for do-
mestic use. My recommendation, therefore, is that as
the cisterns are only sufficiently large to supply the
closets of the six houses, an order be given for the con-
struction of another cistern, capable of holding 500 gal-
-1 lone, and that it be erected, with all needful appliances,
in the court."

0;det:;-1:ere issued accordingly by the commission.

EPIDEMIC CHOLERA.

-411.-

The following precautionary advice to local
boards of health, with reference to epidemic cholera,
has been issued by the General Board of Health,
Whitehall :
" General Board of Health, Whitehall, Sept. 29.

" Cholera has again become epidemic in several of the
Baltic ports, and at Hamburg. On each of the three
former occasions, when the disease has visited England,
its first appearance in our eastern seaports followed
closely on its epidemic outbreak in the last-named city.
" During the past three months there bas been ob-
served in London, and in some other parts of England,
a very unusual fatality front diarrhoea ; and this de-
rangement of the public health is such as, on the previous
occasions referred to, preceded the commence went of the
epidemic periods of cholera.

" The General Board of Health deems it expedient to
eall the attention of local boards of health to these
facts, and most earnestly recommends that the powers
vested in such boards for the protection of the public
health be exorcised from the present time with especial
vigilance.

"As regards the exercise of those powers with parti-
cular reference to the prevention of cholera, the most
important security for the public health is to he found
in the fulfilment of two conditions :—First, that the air
within and about dwelling-places be not contaminated
with offensive organic effluvia, such as arise when the
homes themselves are ill ventilated, overcrowded, and un-
clean, or when their refuse is not properly removed from.
them by drainage or otherwise, or when any filty accumu-
lations exist in their neighbourhood, or when the local
sewerage is defective. Secondly, that the public supply
of water be, as !ar as possible, unpolluted by any kind of
animal or vegetable impurity ; for where cholera is pre-
sent or impending no house cart be considered safe for
habitation in which there is any offensive smell of
animal refuse, or of other putAfactive animal or vege-
table nnettr ; and to water can be considered safe for
drinking into which there flows (as is often the case
with rivers and with wells in the neighbourhood of
house.) any habitual discharge of town refuse or any ac-
cidental soakage or leakage from drains or cesspools.
"An abstract is subjoined (see below) of those more
important provisions of the Public Thalth Act, the
Nuisance Removal Act, ani the Common Ledgirg•
houses Acts, under which local boards of health are able
to provide for the sanitary improvement of their respec-
tive districts is the various twitters referred to.

" In proceeding to the exercise of these powers at the
present juncture, it is desirable that early and special
attention should be given to those parts of each district
which have hithert,) been unhealthiest, particularly to
those whore cholera has prevailed on previous occasions,
or where dia,rrbce a has been most frequent ; also, that
the lucal board should be kept well informed as to Viso
amount of bowel complaint prevailing from time to time
within their district, and that intelligence should be
given to the General Board in case of any notable in-
crease in the prevalence of such disorder.

"It is to be expected that the officer of health (where
one has been appointed) will inquire with more than
ordinary minuteness into the state of premi,em, and
into the quality of the different sources of water-supply,
within his district ; and that sanitary inspectors of nui-
sances wilt use the uttuost vigilance in every department
of their duty—especially in reference to public scaveng-
ing, to the state of sewers, to the removal of house-re-
fuse, to the keeping of slaughter-houses and cattle sheds,
and to the fulfilment of such orders for sanitary work
as the local board may find it requicit• to issue.
" Two case:—`urniehed by the experience of the last
epidemic—peculiarly deserve the consideration of local
boards, as illustrating what may reasonably be expected
from sanitary improvement in averting the ravages of
cholera.

" 1. In September, 1853, the most devastating out-
break of cholera experienced yet in England occurred at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which is near to Tynernouth,
and connected with it by a railway. In Newcastle and
Gateshead, within a few weeks, nearly 2,000 people
died of fhe disease ; and the cost (direct and indirect)
of this visitation was estimated at about 40,600/. over
and above the large losses sustained from the
temporary stoppage of trade. In the neighbouring
borough of Tynemouth, during the same epidemic period,
only 12 deaths from cholera occurred, of which four were
indigenous cases ; and yet diarrhoea was generally pre-
•alent at Tynemouth, while cholera prevailed at New-
castle and the adjoining town of Gateshead. Many
thousand persons from the latter towns fled to Tyne-
mouth, and many continued to pass daily between the
two towns during the whole time of the visitation. This
comparative immunity of Tynemouth is the more re-
markable from its contrast with the heavy mortality
experienced during the out-break of 1848.9, for on that
occasion the deaths in the parish from cholera and
diarrhoea amounted to 463, and the contingent expenses
for the maintenance of widows and orphans due to that
four months' visitation appear to have amounted within
the next four years to 7,5001.
"The great difference between these results seems to
liave been entirely due to sanitary improvements effected
in Tynemouth during the interval between the two visi-
tations. Dr. Greenhow (who at that time was chair-
man of the local board, and took an active part in pro-
Rioting its sanitary measures) has written the following
account* of the course which was adopted :—' The
Public Health Act was applied to the borough of Tyne-
mouth, on the petition of the town-council, in the snm•
user of 1851. The provisions of the Act relative to the
registration and regulation of common of common lodg-
iiighouses and slaughterhouses and the construction of
new streets and houses were immediately put in force.
Care was taken to prevent the erection of houses
without proper conveniences, and provision made for
ventilation. No ashpits were allowed to be made
against the main walls of dwellin4-houses or without
proper doors and covens. Wherever sewers existed
drains from the houses were insisted on, and all
persons laying out new streei,s were compelled to have
back entrances to the houses, and to provide for the con-
struction of drains from the backs of the houses, instead
of carrying them underneath the basement story, as was
previously usual. In the autumn of 1852, when the re-
appearance of cholera in this country was considered
probable, an active inspection of the town was instituted
by the üblic Health Act Committee ; the bycourts and
lanes were thoroughly cleansed; the gully grates trapped;
the foul open ditch behind the North-street was cleansed
and filled in ; and many other local nuisances
throughout the borough were removed. On the report
of the first death from Cholera in Newcastle, in 1853,
the like measures were again resorted to. The courts,

lanes, and common lodging-houses were inspected
by the health committee, aided by other members of
the town-council. Every common lodging-house iu the
town was peremptorily ordered to be lime-washed and
cleansed within 48 hours, an order which was obeyed.
A large staff of carte and men were at once employed to
cleanse ell the courts. lanes, and back passages in the
town, which, after the rough dirt was removed, were
eluioed with water thrown into them by a powerful fire-
engine afloat on the river. All the courts and smaller
streets, after being thus perfectly cleansed, were lime-
washed. Depots of quicklime for the use of the poor
were placed in convenient places throughout the borough,
and to induce them to make free use of it the local autho-
rities personally visited the inhabitants of the localities
in which cholera had formerly prevailed. Ruinous channels
were repaired, and where the gullies were imperfectly
trapped this was rectified, and chloride of lime, of which
a ton was speedily consumed, was profusely used for the
purpose of disinfecting them. In the course of 14 days
the town was brought into as good a sanitary state as
possible under existing circumstances, 1,500 cartloade of
manure having been removed in that short period from
the vicinity of human habitations. The entire expense
incurred by these operations amounted to 2301., which
was afterwards reduced to lees than 2001. by the sale of
the manure."

"Secondly the southern districts of London (compris-
ing nearly a fifth of the entire population of the metro-
polis) have presented a complete proof of the importance
of a pure water supply in relation to the ravages of._
cho-
lera. For throughout those districts, during theeptde
epide-
mic of 1853-4, there were distributed two different
qua-
lities of water, so that one large populationw
was drinking
population an ex-
a tolerably good water, another largee
ceepdui
Inagtliyonfso u
(beingw ater;w
intermixedh while i
t
po
ino other
the r
samerespects districts,th ese w
and
living
e t
under
thesend
sanitaryr i c
penset i.)74wu, were
et
circumstances.
evenf
A nnde r p
dwi nh
retehnc,ei sae atl Yntshai
ems
endtiri aere itosOf C
tioha
el a
epidemic
rates of these populatiotri were compared it was foucd
that the cholera mortality in the houses supplied by the
bad water bad been 3i times as great as in the house
supplied by the better water. This proof of the fatal
influence of foul water Wai rendered 011 stronger b%
reference to what had occurred in the epidemic of 1848:9
—for on that occasion ono of these companies (which
soon afterwards improved its supply) was giving even a
werte water than its rival ; and the population supplied
by it bad at that time suffered a proportionate choler.,
mortality. So that the cinsequeece of the improvement
male by this water company in the interval between the
two epidoncs was, that whereas in the epidemic of
1848-9 there had died 1,925 of their tenants, there died
in the epidemic of 13534 only 611 ; while among the

* Cholera. in Tynemouth in 1831:o2, 1848- :9 and 1853.
By E. 11. Greenhow, M.D., Stc., read before the Epitiemio.
logical Society of London, Feb. 5, 1855.