Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon the prevalence of diphtheria and croup in the registration sub-district of Pontypridd, and upon the sanitary condition and administration of the sanitary areas therein contained.

  • Spear, John.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board upon the prevalence of diphtheria and croup in the registration sub-district of Pontypridd, and upon the sanitary condition and administration of the sanitary areas therein contained. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    neighbourhood. Still, no action of any sort followed even then. He states that he thought inspection of the district and inquiry into outbreaks of disease were “ mere matters of form,” and while the inhabitants of his district were suffering grievously for the want of proper sanitation, he rested contentedly under this idea. So complete has been the deprivation of the inhabitants of Cilfynydd of skilled supervision on the part of a Medical Officer of Health, that the Inspector of Nuisances, Mr. Evans, who has now resigned, was positively unable to inform me in which of the Medical Officer of Health’s districts of the Union the village was situated. Two or three years ago he wrote twice, so he tells me, to Mr. Jenkins asking him for advice and assistance concerning the sanitary condition of the place, but, receiving no reply, and finding the official description of boundaries did not actually show the village to be in Mr. Jenkins’ district, he endeavoured to act as best he could by himself. After inquiring with me into this outbreak of diphtheria, Mr. Jenkins promised to report fully to the Sanitary Authority upon it, and upon the sanitary needs of Cilfynydd. My instructions were to get the Medical Officers of Health if possible to do their own proper work, and I waited some weeks for this report, and then saw Mr. Jenkins again. He then informed me that he had decided to resign his office. In the Llanfabon division of the Rural Sanitary District two deaths were registered from croup in 1888, and two from diphtheria, and one from croup, in the first half of 1889. The two deaths from “ croup ” in 1888 occurred in the same house at Greig, one in April and the other in the following month. The sufferers were young children who had never attended school, being aged respectively 3 years and 17 months. The Medical Officer of Health knew of no other cases of sore throat in the neighbourhood at this period. He reported the drainage of the house and locality to be at the time unsatisfactory and the source of nuisance. In January 1889 diphtheria broke out in a row of cottages at Penteryn, half a mile from Greig, the first sufferer being a school child attending the Greig school. The sanitary condition of the row was most unsatisfactory ; the drains of the then infected (and adjoining) houses emptied at the time into the privy cess-pits and were choked, the cess-pits not having been emptied for some two years. The gully openings into the drains were untrapped and were close by the house doors. At the time of my visit these drains had been made to discharge on to the surface of a field close by, but the sewage there was not properly disposed of and was creating a foul pool. The drain openings were still untrapped and the stench from them greatly com¬ plained of. Water was only obtainable at some little distance, and then from a surface spring that was said to fail in summer. Diphtheria spread from the first infected house to the adjoining one. There five of the inmates suffered; and, later, in the third house of the row, a case of severe sore throat, probably diphtheria, occurred. I heard also of a casual visitor, coming from a distance to the first infected house, suffering afterwards with symptoms of diphtheria. In all, connected with this little outbreak, there were, it appears, nine cases in four families, and one death. Typhoid fever made its appearance in this same row some five years ago. Five cases of this disease then occurred and one death. The owners had, I was informed, raised the rent of the cottages after carrying out the trivial and wholly insufficient drainage improve¬ ments that were made after the last outbreak of disease : improvements, such as they were, that had required much perseverance from the Medical Officer of Health to obtain. The other death from diphtheria in this division occurred in May 1889, in the village of Nelson. The sufferer was a child and attended the Nelson Infant School, but had been away from home for two or three days during the week preceding her illness. Except for a slight attack, from which the child’s mother afterwards suffered, no other case of diphtheria in or about the village appears to have occurred. Nelson is the most important of the villages in this division of the sanitary district. The drainage arrangements and the methods of excrement •disposal are unsatisfactory; large accumulations of excrement in foul cess¬ pit privies are common, and there is much soakage of foul matters into the soil. A scheme for the supply of water to the village is under the con-