Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon recent prevalence of diphtheria and "croup" in the Stalybridge urban sanitary district, and upon the general sanitary circumstances of the district / [John Spear].

  • Spear, John.
Date:
[1890]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon recent prevalence of diphtheria and "croup" in the Stalybridge urban sanitary district, and upon the general sanitary circumstances of the district / [John Spear]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Swinshaw reservoir. The supply is said to be abundant and is laid on at constant pressure. House Accommodation.—There is a considerable amount of crowding of buildings upon area at Stalybridge. Courts, some of them entered by covered ways, are numerous. There are a number of back-to-back houses, and many more without through ventilation. Some of the courts are exceedingly close and confined, and yet a considerable proportion of their area is allowed to be occupied by accumulations of excrement and other filth in large and deep middensteads. Many houses in the town derive their sole air supply from such confined and befouled spaces, and are rendered unfit for human habitation in consequence. Even as regards the houses that abut upon the public streets a similar condition of things is often found at their rear—a space enclosed on every side, and within it, occupying a large proportion of the area, and close by the back doors and windows, foul middensteads. In addition to these defects of surroundings, many of the cottages of the district are very small, ill-ventilated, and ill-lighted; some, having regard to the paucity of accommodation, are overcrowded. Lodging-houses.—No attempt has been made to register “houses let in lodgings ” ; common lodging-houses are left to the supervision of the police. Certain of the latter houses that I visited were overcrowded, the rooms without proper ventilation, and the privy and lavatory accommodation wholly insufficient. School and Factory Accommodation.—In pursuing my inquiries as to causa¬ tion of various outbreaks of disease I had occasion to visit two of the public elementary schools, a private dame school, and two of the factories where numbers of young people are employed. The Castle Hall school I found unprovided with proper means of ventilation, and the atmosphere of the rooms was close and stuffy; the closets used by the children are of the most objectionable type—cesspit privies with an overflow pipe to the sewers. The St. George’s Schools are of more modern construction; and proper trough closets are provided. Here also, however, there is a deficiency of means for the introduction of fresh air into the school and class rooms; the children’s greatcoats, &c., are hung up in the rooms, and from the lavatory of the infants’ department a drain appears to be directly connected with the public sewer. The private dame school consisted of a little ill-ventilated cottage, much overcrowded by the children received, and exposed to foul emanations from an enormous privy-midden in the yard common to this and neighbouring houses.* In one factory privy-accommodation of a form said to be not uncommon in the district was observed. The privies are built one above the other to the number of storeys in the factory (in this case six), and communicate directly with a rough cesspool at the foot of the range. The privies open immediately from the workrooms, and all crevices to the external air are carefully stopped up. On opening the closet door from the workroom the gust of foul air that meets one, coming apparently straight from the cesspool far below, is overpowering. The workrooms are kept exceedingly close and warm (the temperature in those I visited varying from 80 to 90 F.), which renders it all the more important that the air supply should be pure. In the second factory I visited, the closet accommodation was of a similar description—that of cesspit privies—but disconnected from the workrooms. Slaughter-houses.-—There are reported to be some 24 registered slaughter¬ houses in the district. Several of them are situated amongst the crowded yards and back places already described, so as to be unavoidably a source of nuisance. The Dairies, Cowsheds, and Milhshops require to be further regulated. The Inspector of Nuisances has visited them and reported upon their structural * Wlien a case of typhoid fever occurred recently in one of the adjoining houses, the excretu of the patient were deposited in this midden.