The Sanitary Condition of the Poor in Relation to Disease, Poverty, and Crime / With an appendix on the control and prevention of infectious diseases

by Benson Baker

The labouring man, above all others, should rise in the morning refreshed by nature’s sweet restorer—balmy sleep. But, by neglecting ventilation, it is not so. Drowsiness, sickness, headache, and languor are his lot; and in order to bring himself up to the mark, he is obliged to have recourse to artificial stimulants. Scavengers are necessary to maintain the comfort and cleanliness of our streets, so oxygen is necessary to maintain the health and comfort of our bodies. By depriving our bodies of pure air, we deprive them of the power to throw off infectious diseases. This may simply be illustrated by placing a lighted candle under a shade when a limited amount of air only can be introduced. If not supplied the candle will go on burning for a while, giving out less light and less heat; but when the oxygen is exhausted, the candle will die out. Thus it is with man. The candle, when deprived of pure air, gave evidence of less light, so to man under the same conditions would give evidence of less life. A lower vitality is equivalent to a closer approach to death. Day is opposed to night. Life to death. But even as between day and night there is twilight, so in our experience there is the twilight of disease. Thousands in this metropolis, through the neglect of the laws of health, live in the twilight of disease, rather than in the noon-day brightness of health.

I have endeavoured to show that fresh air is a necessary of life just as much as food. I have indicated its importance in relation to health and how imperatively necessary it was in sickness to aid the body to overcome disease. If overcrowding in small dwellings and its consequent ill effects upon health, morality, and industry be a necessary social evil, it is evidently our duty to lessen that evil, if we cannot altogether remove it. This, in some measure, may be accomplished by free ventilation and paying due regard to the ordinary sanitary laws of health. If we turn a deaf ear to the warning voices of conscience and reason, and go on living and breaking the laws of health, we must expect to pay the penalty for breaking those laws. If men habitually sleep in an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas and fetid exhalations, they must of necessity exhaust the vitality of their bodies.

The defective sanitary condition of hundreds of houses in this district render it imperative that something should not only be said, but done. But the question arises—who is to do it? I take it that the duty lies not alone with either the tenant, or landlord, or parochial authorities. It is a work of co-operation in which there is work for each; and each must do his work. In endeavouring to urge this sanitary reformation it may be Utopian to expect a perfect result; yet I am convinced that much can be done to render even the present wretched dwellings of the poor much more healthy than they are at present. I have frequently in my visits to Charles-street, Stephen-street, Stephen’s-court, and, in fact, in the houses contiguous, met, on going upstairs in the morning, a hot, fetid air. On going into the rooms I have observed that the walls were damp with exhalations caused by so many herding together. I have naturally requested the windows to be opened, in order to let out the hot and impure air, and, to my dismay, I have almost invariably found that the upper sash was a fixture. This state of things is to be deplored, inasmuch as it prevents efficient ventilation and is not only injurious to health but beyond the means of poor lodgers to remedy. I would venture to suggest the propriety of landlords seeing that all windows be made to open at the top, or a square of glass be removed and a perforated tin plate be inserted in its place, or better still, a window ventilator. A brick removed out of the chimney, close to the ceiling, and a valve fitted so as to allow the escape of foul air up the flue, is a good means of ventilation. There are many ways of ventilating an apartment; and it matters little how it is done if it be done efficiently. If any one of the above methods be adopted I feel sure it would be a great boon to many poor.

There is one subject that bears a most important relation to the health and comfort of those over-crowded dwellings, and that is the supply of water. This is anything but adequate to the requirements of the many people that are sheltered under one roof in my district. The tubs and cisterns are in many cases only sufficient to supply one family, but in the houses where the poor live, each room is occupied by one or two families at the least; the consequence is, that there is a great demand for water, and not being sufficient, impurities of all kinds abound; personal cleanliness is neglected to a frightful extent, washing the skin is looked upon as a terrible innovation, and the result is often dreaded. To suggest a bath is often looked upon with as great a horror as a surgical operation. If there were a more plentiful supply of water, there would not be the excuse for such a neglect of washing and cleansing the dwellings of the poor. Personal cleanliness and the washing out of rooms, &c., is the duty of the tenant quite as much as paying the rent. It would be well if cleanliness were made a condition of tenancy,—if the rent collector insisted on the cleanliness of the rooms with the same firmness that he insists on the punctual payment of the rent, yea, rather allow a week’s rent to stand over than a dirty room to go unwashed.

The sewerage to the houses is not adequate to carry off the enormous waste of fifty people. These houses were only built for the accommodation of fifteen to eighteen people. If there be not a sufficient supply of water to flush the drains at least once a-day, they become clogged up and generate poisonous gases, which enter the houses and bring on a lowered state of health; skin diseases, scabies, typhus, and choleraic diarrhœa are the results. That this is not an overstatement may be shown by the fact, that outbreaks of choleraic diarrhœa have over and over again been suddenly stopped by a heavy fall of rain. This beneficial result has come about by the rain flushing the sewers and clearing off the morbid poisons.

There are other nuisances which contribute to contaminate the air. I have, in visits from house to house, noticed that the dust heaps are allowed to accumulate to a frightful extent, they are neither more nor less than one vast mass of decayed animal and vegetable matter, with a good proportion of the remains of decomposed fish. The consequence was that if windows were opened for the purpose of ventilation, a worse condition of the room was induced. Further, I cannot help remarking that the sanitary condition of the streets and courts in my district, especially part of Bell-street, Charles-street, George-street, part of Devonshire-street, is far from satisfactory. Those that live in the cellars in these streets are constantly inhaling poisonous exhalations arising from putrid animal and vegetable matter, and I am sure the stench which arises from stinking muscles and cockle shells, must be injurious to health. I would ask upon what principle do the authorities do their work? Broad streets, squares, and open thoroughfares appear to me to be oftener watered and swept than these out-of-the-way courts, alleys, and narrow streets, which are overcrowded with a teeming dirty population. Surely these are just the places that require the greatest care, for these are the places which, if they do not breed an epidemic, would readily foster it. The slums of a city ought to be made as healthy as possible, not only for the good of those who live in the slums, but for the good of the community at large. Society is like the body; one member cannot be affected without the whole body suffering. It is not only right, but profitable to make the dwellings of the poor healthy, and to surround them by all the protection that preventive measures can do. Sickness is one of the worst calamities that can befall the poor labouring man. When laid low, all his resources are cut off. His family, and so must he, go without the necessaries of life, or run up a heavy score at the small huxter’s shop. His rent cannot be paid; and should his illness last long, both he and his family become a burden to the ratepayers; and should he recover his health, it is weeks, aye, months before he can recover his position and stand free from debt. Now, suppose that this illness was brought on by the defective sanitary condition of his dwelling, and his own neglect of proper attention to cleanliness, why it is at once evident that it is the interest of the landlord to see that his houses are healthy, for a dead man pays no debts, and a sick man pays no rent; further, it is the interest of the tenant to observe the laws of health. What pen can describe the racking torture of disease and poverty combined? I have visited houses where the head of the family has been thrown of work, by ill-health. I have witnessed the gradual departure of articles of ornament from his little room, soon to be followed by other pieces of furniture, until even the necessary utensils of civilised life were gone. The bedstead and bedding have been put away, and a sack of shavings supplied its place. The room has been literally stripped. The children have been equally deprived of their clothes, and were huddled up in a corner in quite as primitive a fashion as their forefathers the ancient Britons. The mother went out washing for two or three days a week; what she earned they all lived on. It may be asked why did he not go to the workhouse? I reply that the deserving poor, the earnest, striving poor, have the greatest possible objection to go to the house. They would rather die in want and wretchedness than become an inmate of the house. Whether this dislike be well founded or no, it is not my object now to inquire, but I must state that there are some clamorous for admission. From what has been said, I think it may fairly be inferred that if a liberal and just regard be paid to the sanitary condition of the dwellings of the poor it would, to look at it from the £ s. d. point of view, be a benefit to tenant, landlord, and ratepayer. It would also tend very materially to improve the physical, moral and mental condition of the poor; it would make them healthier men, happier men. It would materially better fit them for all the social conditions of life.

I know of no subject in a sanitary point of view that demands a more careful consideration than the possibility of a choleraic epidemic next spring. I wish not to alarm, but to try and urge people to be on their guard so as effectually to lessen if not prevent the dire effects of a cholera visitation. Should cholera visit this part of the metropolis—and we have no guarantee that it will not—it is our duty to be prepared to deal promptly and effectually with it.

The news has been already flashed through the land that it has made its appearance. Although confined at present to two places, this has made many a stout heart tremble. But this is not a time for fear. “Let us, then, be up and doing with a heart for any fate,” and seek by an earnest endeavour to render our homes untenable to this terrible pestilence. Every man this day must do his duty. These are stirring words, and they call us to action, for a deadlier foe now threatens the happiness of our sea-girt island than that which Nelson fought. Cholera, an unseen foe, is nevertheless a real one. Many a hero that has braved a hundred fights has blanched before this deadlier foe. Like a mighty conqueror and destroyer, it has marched onward as regardless of the ermine of the judge as the swaddling clothes of the infant. In vain has the mother wrung her hands in passionate anguish over the death of her little one; husband has mourned for wife, and wife for husband; children have been left fatherless; and fathers have been left childless; nothing but darkness, blackness, death, and desolation, have marked the route of this potent enemy to man.

One of the best preventive measures is to have a plentiful supply of pure water. We can then keep our sewers flushed—our homes clean, and so render our hearths and homes comparatively safe from the devastating pest of cholera.

There is nothing in nature that possesses more interest than water. It is composed of oxygen and hydrogen. This may be easily demonstrated by throwing a piece of potassium on water, when it will instantly take fire: because of the rapid affinity of the oxygen of the water for the metal potassium the hydrogen is liberated, which burns during the decomposition which takes place. This experiment, which is equally simple and beautiful, shows the composition of water. The combinations into which water enters in the animal and vegetable kingdoms are as various and as beautiful as the magic forms of the kaleidoscope. Neither animals nor plants can live without water. It is, therefore, a necessary of life. On the purity of water, in a great measure, our health depends. Various are the sources of water, and equally various the degrees of the purity or impurity of water: for this reason—that water is the great solvent in nature. The first great source of our water supply is from the ocean, which receives the water from all the sparkling rills that murmur as they leap down the mountain side, which unite and form rivulets. These rivulets unite again, and form the mighty flowing rivers with majestic water-falls, cataracts, and cascades; and these flow on till they empty themselves into the ocean.