The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-06-06 00:00:00

ON THE EPIDEMIC FEVER LATELY PREVA
LENT IN LIVERPOOL.

BY DR. DUNCAN.
The following table shows the progress of the epidemic.
I add the deaths from diarahcea and dysentery, as these af-
fections appeared along with fever, and prevailing in the
same localities, and under the same circumstances, may be
regarded as forming the same epidemic :
Average Weekly Deaths in the Parish of Liverpool.

1847. All causes. Fever. Diarrhoea,
&c.
-
January
February....
March 285 27 39
April
May . 3Bl 124 59
June 427 193 43
July
August 5Ol 183 109
September
October
November ..... .
December
1848.
January
February... .
March lB4 22 0
April
May (average of two } 151 13 8
weeks)

The maximum weekly mortality from all causes was 537;
from fever. 215.

The general mortality has now (May, 1848) come down
to its usual standard, having been for the previous two years
higher than the average. The mortality from fever is also
reduced nearly to the average.
The total deaths during the year 1847 were, from all
causes, 17,262; fever, 5,239; diarrhoea, &c., 2,220.
The general mortality was thus in the ratio of one in
fifteen of the ordinary population, and the deaths from
fever amounted to the large proportion of thirty per cent.
of the total deaths. Of the deaths from fever. 1,952 took
place in the public hospitals ; and 3,287 at the patients'
dwellings.
As illustrating the origination of the fever in the worst-
conditioned districts and its subsequent extension to the
better portions of the town, I may state that of 1323
patients who died of fever at their own dwellings during
the first six months of the ye.zr, 673, or more than one-
half, resided in Exchange and Vauxhall Wards, which
are well known to be the worst in the whole borough in a
sanitary point of view. During the subsequent six months
—the epidemic being more generally diffused—the pro-
portion of deaths furnished by these wards was only 748
out of 1961. In the two best-conditioned wards of the
town, (Rodney-street and Abercromby,) with a popula-
tion nearly equal to that of Exchange and Vauxhall,
only 140 deaths from fever took place throughout the
year—i.e., 47 in the first six months and 93 in the second.
Exchange and Vauxhall Wards furnished 1421 fever deaths
during the same space of time. Of the total deaths from
fever at the patients' dwellings, nearly one-seventh oc-
curred in the four worst-conditioned streets in Liverpool,
viz., Lace-street, Crosbie-street, New Bird-street, and
Brick-street. In Lace-street alone, 378 deaths took
place during the year, of which 141 were from fever; and
to these we may add nearly 100 more for the deaths of
patients sent from this street to the public hospitals. It
will give additional significance to these figures if I state
that Lace-street contains 109 houses, (51 of which are
situated in filthy courts,) and that its ordinary population
is between 1400 and 1500.

The epidemic, on its first outbreak, was remarkably
mild in its character, but it gradually assumed a more
aggravated type, until, if I may use the expression, it had
passed its perihelion. I calculate that, during 1847, about
55,000 persons suffered from fever, being one-fourth of
the entire population of the parish in 1841.
It must not be supposed that this was an imported
fever, for, contrary to the general belief, very few, indeed,
of the Irish (probably not more than one in 5000) were
suffering from the disease when landed here. Besides,
the epidemic did not make its appearance for fully two
months after the commencement of the influx, when the
overcrowding in the district first invaded had reached the
fever point. The circumstances, in fact, were such as to
enable any medical man to fortell the result almost as
confidently as an astronomer would predict an eclipse.
In a report on the health of the town in the beginning
of February, when the mortality from fever was as yet
scarcely raised above the average, I stated that, " should
the destitute Irish continue to flock into Liverpool as they
are still doing, there can be little doubt that what we now
see is only the commencement of the most severe and
desolating epidemic which has visited Liverpool for the
last ten years." I did not then anticipate that within
little more than four months from that time, the morta-
lity from fever would be raised 2000 per cent. above the
average of former years!
But over-crowding, although the prime agent, was not
the only agent at work. It was not simply over-crowding,
but the huddling together of a host of half-starved va-
grants, in miserable dwellings, in the worst-conditioned
districts pf the town—over-crowding in filthy, ill-venti-
lated houses; confined, abominable courts; and dark,
damp, underground habitations, affording, in many in-
stances, not more than 30 or 40 cubic feet of air to each
inmate. lam aware that there are some who will think
the mere destitution of the subjects of this calamity a
sufficient explanation of the facts which I have described ;
and I confess I am not one of those who think the sani-
tary cause promoted by concealing the truth that poverty
exerts an important influence in the production of disease,
and more especially in the propagation of fever. But 1
would simply ask such objectors whether they really be-
lieve that if these destitute Irish bad been lodged in clean,
well-ventilated, wholesome habitations, such as could be
commanded by proper sanitary regulations, with 300 or
400 cubic feet of air to each inmate, fever would have
prevailed among them to the extent it did ? Or, do they
suppose that, crowded together in the dwellings I have
described, the dietetic regimen of a London alderman
would have materially diminished the register of deaths ?
In connexion with this point, also, it must be remem-
bered that the resources of the public purse and of private
charity were distributed with a liberal hand, and that no
one ascertained to be really destitute was allowed to want
the necessaries of life.

And now, what practical lessons are we to draw from
this visitation ? Hadit occurred a year later, or had the
Sanitary Act come into operation a year earlier, there is
no doubt that we should have been better prepared to
meet it. All that the health committee of the Town
Council had power to do under the circumstances was
promptly done. Arrangements were made for a daily
supply of water in the infected districts ; the streets, and
courts, and passages were cleansed daily ; and filthy
houses were whitewashed wherever practicable. The
parish authorities, with the assistance of government,
provided hospital accommodation for 1600 patients, and
made efficient arrangements for freely supplying the
wants of the necessitous. But unfortunately, the most
important powers conferred on the health committee by
the Sanitary Act were unavailable at the time when they
were most required. These powers, however, have since
been most energetically enforced. Seven thousand eight
hundred and forty condemned cellars have been closed ;
within the last four months, 1616 filthy houses have been
cleansed by the owners on notices under the Sanitary
Act ; the streets and courts in the poorer districts of the
town are daily visited by the scavengers ; a better supply
of water is about to be introduced; additional baths and
washhouses are to be immediately erected ; an efficient sys-
tem of sewerage and drainage is being carried outundcrthe
direction of our talented borough engineer; the inferior
lodging-houses are placed under proper regulation, a maxi-
mum number of lodgers 'ming fixed for each ; nuisances, of
all kinds, prejudicial to health, are dailysoughtout,andre-
medied ; and everything promises that, at no distant day,
Liverpool will present an example of the benefits which
may be derived from sanatory legislation.

REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON
SUGAR AND COFFEE PLANTING.

The Select Committee appointed to inquire into the
present condition and prospects of the interests connected
with, and dependent on, sugar and coffee planting in her
Majesty's East and West India possessions and the Mau-
ritius, and to consider whether any and what measures
can be adopted by parliament for their relief, and who
were empowered to report the minutes of evidence taken
before them from time to time, to the house, and also
their opinion thereupon, have agreed to the following re-
report :

Your committee have taken the subjects referred to
them, and have agreed to the following resolutions :
Resolved,—That it is the opinion of this committee,
1. That great distress undoubtedly prevails amongst all
who are interested in the production of sugar in the Bri-
tish colonies.

2. That distress has partially existed for several years;
and though it has been much more severely experienced
within the last twelve months, it cannot be exclusively
attributed to causes of only recent operation.
3. That slave emancipation was carried into effect with-
out sufficient provision having been made for providing
many of the colonies with an adequate command of free-
labour, and the rate of wages therein has consequently
been very high, and the cost of production unduly en-
hanced. _ _

4. That the late fall in the price of sugar has led to a
considerable diminution in the wages of labour in many
of the British tropical colonies, which has been submitted
to except on the part of the Creoles of British Guiana,
who, it may he hoped, will speedily follow the example
already set them by the African and Portuguese immi-
grants of that colony. And with respect to Jamaica.
there is an absence of official reports as to any present
reduction of wages, and the evidence is limited to partivl
success on particular estates.

5. That the British possessions have capabilities for the
supply of sugar far exceeding the probable consumption
of the United Kingdom, and that their ultimate pros-
perity must therefore depend upon the means of success-
ful competition with foreign producers, rather than upon
any permanent protection of their produce in the British
market.

6. That the change made in the sugar duties by the act
of 1846, without any accompanying remedy for the diffi-
culties of production by free labour in the British colonies,
has precipitated tho ruin of these possessions, by aggra-
vating the pressure under which they laboured from the
foregoing causes.
7. That many estates in the British colonies have been
already abandoned, that. many more are now in course of
abandonment, and that from this cause a very serious
diminution is to be apprehended in the total amount of
production. That the first effect of this diminution will
bO an increase in the prices of sugar, and the ultimate
effect a greater extension to the growth of sugar in slave
countries, and a greater impetus to slavery and the slave
trade.

8. That if such diminution of production takes place,