Dr. Thorne Thorne's report to the local government board on the general sanitary circumstances and administration of the rural sanitary district of Dartford, and on an outbreak of diphtheria in the parish of Swanscombe.

  • Thorne, R. Thorne (Richard Thorne), Sir, 1841-1899.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Thorne Thorne's report to the local government board on the general sanitary circumstances and administration of the rural sanitary district of Dartford, and on an outbreak of diphtheria in the parish of Swanscombe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Dr. Thorne Thorne’s Report to the Local Government Board on the General Sanitary Circumstances and Administration of the Rural Sanitary District of Dartford, and on an Outbreak of Diphtheria in the parish of Swanscombe. George Buchanan, - Assistant Medical Officer, December 11, 1879. I.—General Description. The rural sanitary district of Dartford includes 20 of the 22 parishes which are comprised in the Union of Dartford, the remaining two, namely, the parishes of Dartford and Erith, having been constituted urban districts. It is situated in the northern portion of the county of Kent, and stretches from the River Thames to within about 6 or 7 miles of Sevenoaks. By far the greater portion of the district lies upon the Chalk, but to the north-east and to a lesser extent in several scattered parts of the district this formation is covered to a varying depth by Thanet Sand and the Woolwich and Oldhaven Beds forming the Lower London Tertiaries, and by patches of London Clay. Entering the rural sanitary district at the south-west is the River Darent, which, curving in an easterly direction, reaches the centre of the district, and then continuing its course northwards flows through the urban district of Dartford and empties itself into the Thames through the Dartford Marshes. On the north-west the River Cray also enters the district. Flowing northward it receives one of its principal tributaries, and then taking a more easterly direction it joins the Darent about a mile and a half above the mouth of that river. The basins of these two rivers form the natural drainage areas for a very considerable proportion of the rural sanitary district. II.—General Sanitary Circumstances and Administration. 1st. Dwelling Accommodation.—Many of the parishes in this district contain localities which are rapidly becoming populous, others are, and probably will for a considerable time remain, sparsely populated. Where a rapid increase of population is taking place it is generally due to the establishment of some trade giving employment to a large number of hands, and as a consequence the houses which are being built are to a great extent of the class required by the artizan and labouring man. Thus cement works, paper mills, powder mills, cartridge factories, and silk and linen printing establish- ments have in various parts of the district led to the conversion of hamlets into populous villages, some of which in turn bid fair soon to become small towns. On the other hand there are also instances, as, for example, at Bexley, where a large increase in the number of inhabitants has been due to the construction of first class villas and other residences mainly for persons having business engagements in London. But whether the houses are of the former or of the latter class they very generally exhibit conditions which must necessarily subject their inhabitants to risk of nuisance and of danger to health. Thus houses are built on sites which, in their present state, are, from wetness, quite unfit for human habitations. Indeed water may be seen flowing rapidly from beneath door steps which are only a few inches above the* ground level, and wells close to the houses may be seen with the water standing in them to within about three inches of the surface, the ground floors being only separated by a few inches of space from this surface. The suitability of the materials of which the houses are constructed appears also at times a matter of complete indifference to the person erecting the dwelling. Thus in one instance I found the inside wall of a dwelling house being lined with broken pieces of brick which were thickly coated with manure and other black offensive matter. It is also a common practice to provide new houses with a well and cesspool in dangerous contiguity. Both of these are as a rule sunk to a considerable depth in the chalk or other formation, the well being almost invariably the deeper of the two, and the contents of the cesspool, over which the privy or watercloset is built, are known to soak away. It is true that the chalk in most parts of this district is very hard and that it is more than usually free from fissures, and so long as the houses were sparsely scattered over a somewhat wide area the cesspools and wells were in consequence not often in dangerous relationship to each other. But now that cottages are being run up in long rows, and in yards behind main streets and roads, the circumstances are entirely different, and before long this practice must be productive of very serious consequences. The limited space on which the houses are built has also led to the cesspools being constructed so near to the dwellings as to cause grave nuisance. A O 810. Wt. 11903.