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

BY DR. DUNCAN

The following table shows the progress of the epidemic.
I add the deaths from diarahoaa 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,

All causes. Fever. Diarrhoea,
&c.

January
February
March
April
May .
June
July
August
September
October
November ..... .
December
1848.
January
February
March
April
May (average of two
weeks)

285
332
381
427
470

241
340
979

124
193
194
183
140
115

325
184
173
151

46
28
22
20

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, 17,2G2; 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.
)f the total deaths. Of the deaths from fever, 1,952 took
the public hospitals ; and 3,287 at the patients'

iwelling

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 ycar, 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
ace of time. Of the total deaths from
its' dwellings, nearly one-seventh oc-

during the sate
fever at the p,

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
5,000 persons suffered from fever, being one-fourth of
mrish 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 monti,

lity from fever would be raised

average of former

3ut over-crowdin.

time, the morta-

)0 per cent. ab

grime agent, was not

the only agent at mirk. It vfis not simply over-erowdin,
but the huddling together of a host of half-starved va-
grants, in miserable dwellings, in the worst-conditioned

wer-crowding in filthy, ill-venti
`-- - end dark

districts of the town—uv,. _
lated houses ; confined, aborojnabie courts

p, under

any in-

inmate. lam
the mere desti

sufficient e
and I conf

) cubic f

of air t

would sinipl
Hove that if
well-ventilat

of this cal

commanded by pro

.1 thin

400 cubic feet o'

of those w

inth that poverty

production of disease

to each i

is resin

ter they really be-

with 300 0:

tr would have

Or, do they

ss I ha

lso, it Must be remem-

'urces of the public pur

and of private

d, and that no