No. 6.
Mr. Thomas Porter, Surgeon to the St. Botolph’s Bishopsgate District.
Have you observed any emanations from the sewers in your district?—In Liverpool-street there is now a cleansing of the sewers by opening the top, taking the soil out, and carting it away.
What is the effect of this process?—It vitiates the atmosphere to a considerable extent.
Have you observed any effects from it?—I have often found headache to result from it to myself, and parties have complained to me of the same effects.
What is the state of the drainage?—There are some districts, such as Halfmoon-street, which are imperfectly drained, where the cesspools are suffered to overflow and run along the kennels at the sides of the street, causing fœtid and deleterious exhalations; in this street and the alleys opening into it, especially Thompson’s-court, Thompson’-rents, Baker’s-court, Providence-place, and Campions-buildings, fever prevails nearly the whole year round. It also prevails very much in Bligh’s-buildings, Lamb-alley, Dunning’s-alley, Sweet Apple-court, Montague-court, Artillery-lane, Rose-alley, and Catherine-wheel-alley. These places, all of which are badly drained and not regularly cleansed, are seldom without fever for any length of time.
In these places are there any water-closets?—No; they have nothing but common necessaries, which are usually allowed to run over before they are emptied, and it is impossible to enter the tenements without being assailed by the disagreeable and unhealthy effluvia thence arising.
Have they water laid on in the rooms of the several tenements?—Seldom in the rooms; generally in some place in the court to which they all go. Many have not that even, and they resort to the common street pumps. I do not remember an instance where water is properly laid on in any house of the labouring classes.
What rents are paid for houses in this condition?—Rent for one room is from 1s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. per week. The rents are very high in proportion to the size and accommodation of the rooms.
You say you have observed emanations from the sewers within your district?—Yes; they are frequently very offensive in moist warm weather. You may, indeed, almost tell the condition of the weather from the smells from the public sewers. Recently in returning from Islington along the City-road from the Canal bridge to Finsbury-square, and along Sun-street, I noticed in passing near the gratings, as every person must have noticed, a peculiarly offensive effluvium.
Within the city itself have you perceived the same effluvium on passing the gratings of the sewers?—Frequently; it is so general that no particular place is distinguished by being free from it.
Suppose a tradesman or a merchant returning from Change in a state of depression from anxiety passing through a street, exposed to a succession of smells and breathing the effluvium from such sewers; what is likely to be the effect upon him?—A low nervous fever, with considerable gastric derangement. The greater part of fever cases which I have to treat are of this description.
Is that with every class of persons?—Yes, with every rank of life. They are mostly of the low or typhoid type, and do not bear depletion. In my ordinary course of treatment I generally begin by emptying the stomach and bowels, and by lowering the diet. I then use a moderately stimulating treatment with a perfect absence of solid food.
Is gross feeding or excess very common amongst the people of your district?—Not very common. Excess from drinking is more frequent than excess from eating.
In what proportion will there be of excess from eating or drinking in such cases?—Amongst the labouring classes perhaps there may be one case in ten from excess of drinking, and one case in thirty from excess of eating.
If these excesses had taken place in a purer atmosphere, do you conceive the results in disease would have followed?—In most instances the system in a pure atmosphere would have thrown off the inconvenience without fever.
Then excess or depression both predispose to the attacks of disease from atmospheric impurity, and especially to the direct influence of the effluvium in question?—Yes, certainly; excess of watching, want of rest, mental anxiety, every depressing cause predisposes to an attack.
Besides the defects in respect to the cleansing of the cesspools and the drains, are there not defects in respect to other portions of cleansing, such as dust-bins neglected?—Yes, in those places there is no person to regulate or to see that done which ought to be done; consequently the dustmen and scavengers duty is much neglected, and places are filled with decomposing remains, which remain there two or three weeks in summer and much longer in winter. The carelessness of the people themselves as to cleanliness is also deplorable, as it operates very injuriously on their health and comfort; the floors of their rooms, the passages, stairs, and landings are often suffered to remain unwashed for weeks and months, and the walls and ceilings are seldom cleansed or whitened, so that what with filthiness of one kind or other they present an appearance of wretchedness beyond all description.
What is the condition of the children born or kept in courts or places of the condition you describe, with badly cleansed drains, with privies, and without water or conveniences for cleansing introduced into their habitations?—The children are, for the most part, of delicate or weak frame, and subject to struma. The health of children depends partly whether they were born in such places or not, whether their parents on each side are Londoners, as there appears to be a gradual decline in physical power by a long continuance in a vitiated atmosphere, which passes from parent to progeny, and partly also in a family where one part of the children have been born and brought up in the country and the other in town; those born in the country, and not coming into London until they are five years of age, will have comparatively strong frames, and will resist such influences, whilst those born in town will be comparatively of delicate frame, weakly and strumous, liable to glandular disease, and diseased affections of the joints and the spine. Generally they are shorter in stature, sometimes they are taller, but then they are slender and very delicate, in which case they are likely to have bending of the limbs.
What is the condition of females born under such circumstances?—I have observed that the females are less depressed than the males, and are reared with less difficulty.
Why is this so?—I have not been able to determine. It may be that the male requires more extensive and powerful exercise, and that in pure air, than the female, and consequently that the female suffers less from the want of it.
What are the moral characteristics of the population brought up under these depressing physical circumstances?—They have decided unwillingness to labour. They are not so strenuous as the more healthy people from the country. They are more apt to resort to subterfuge to gain their ends without labour. Light employments they do not object to, and do comparatively well in. But it is difficult to keep a native of London, either male or female to heavy work; they will avoid it if they can. The cause is in most cases physical from the deficiency of ability to labour. The greatest part of them are mentally irritable and impatient under moral restraint.
Is any similar difference marked on the condition of the children of tradespeople between those children of tradespeople brought up in London and those born in the country?—Yes, there is a similar difference perceptible, but less in degree. Amongst tradesmen, too, it is the extensive practice of the parents to send their children out of town to school or on visits, which may powerfully affect them beneficially. In the tradesman’s family they have better sleeping rooms, and greater cleanliness in person, and in bed and body linen, and also a better regulated dietary.
What is the effect of such atmospheric impurities as those described in the chances of recovery from attacks of disease?—It lessens the chances of recovery and greatly impedes convalescence. Indeed, in many instances, very little progress can be made until the patient is sent out into the country. In a case of fever which occurred to a strong healthy man, aged 24, a carman, in a close neighbourhood, the house being without drains and ill ventilated; no progress could be effected until he was removed into the country, although the fever had decidedly subsided. I believe that in this case something else would have supervened, had he not been removed. I frequently remove patients in a respectable condition, finding no chance of recovery without it. Many of the better conditioned houses being badly adapted for the treatment of fevers, having low ceilings and insufficient ventilation.
What will be the difference in respect to the time of cure or convalescence between a well and an ill-cleansed neighbourhood?—A difference of perhaps one-half.
Suppose the rooms of each house supplied with water, the privies and cesspools removed, drains from the houses to sewers, and the sewers so constructed as to be cleansed, and to convey away daily such refuse as that which is allowed to remain decomposing in the close courts during weeks. Supposing the surfaces of the streets cleansed as frequently after the manner in use in Philadelphia and other towns where they are cleansed with water daily, to what extent do you conceive disease would be reduced?—Of fevers two-thirds certainly, and other diseases would be considerably lessened.