“At the back of the whole row (on the north side of the street) there runs a series of little gardens, each house possessing one, in width equal to the frontage of the house it belongs to, and in length 56 feet. To every five houses there is a pump; and at the bottom of each garden a double privy, answering for two houses, the cesspool shallow, and open to the air; and to this nuisance many have added a pigsty, and dung or rubbish heap. The inhabitants of this street are poor people, chiefly silk-weavers, and what are here called frame-work-knitters or stockingers.
“There are on this (the north) side of the street 54 houses, and between October, 1837, and the latter part of March, 1838, the families inhabiting six adjoining houses in the middle of the row were grievously afflicted with typhus fever, whilst those who dwelt in the remaining 48 houses were comparatively healthy.
“The following list will give at one view the details of this visitation.
“The houses are numbered from the bottom of the hill towards the top.
| Number of the House. | Name of the Family. | Number of Persons ill with Fever. | Remarks. |
|---|---|---|---|
| No. 25 | Langton. | 3 | Children, all of whom recovered. |
| No. 26 | Dearu. | 4 | Man and wife, the former died. |
| No. 27 | Bailey. | 1 | Man, who recovered. |
| No. 28 | Nettleship. | 4 | Three children, and subsequently their mother. The children, after many weeks, recovered, but the poor mother (who was pregnant), being much weakened by the fever, and long attendance upon her children, died soon afterwards in child-bed. |
| No. 29 | Curzon. | 5 | First a lodger, named Elizabeth Sherwin, (recently confined) and her infant, both died. Then three of Curzon’s children, who recovered. |
| No. 30 | Hatfield. | 1 | A girl, who recovered. |
“In all 16 persons attacked with typhus fever, of whom five died.
“Here then we have a very interesting subject for investigation; namely, how was it that in a row of 54 houses, uniform in situation, size, and construction, tenanted by the same description of persons, the inhabitants of the six centre houses should have been attacked by a malignant fever, from which those who lived in the 24 houses above and 24 below them altogether escaped?
“By a careful inspection of the whole row I obtained the following information and facts:—That before this street was built, the natural moisture of the land, and any sudden rush of water caused by rain, was carried away by a ditch running down the whole length of the hill, where the present gardens terminate. Also, that in the gardens of the upper 21 or 22 houses this ditch had been filled up; and sinks and drains, communicating with the main sewer, that passes down the middle of the street, had been placed between each garden and the dwelling-house. At this point too there is a brick wall, carried down to the bottom of the garden, and dividing this property from the adjoining, and it is very probable that this wall assisted in checking the spread of the fever from the six infected houses, at which part of the row we have now arrived.
“The state of the premises belonging to these ill-fated houses was as follows:—The ditch already alluded to as passing at the bottom of the gardens was here not filled up; there were not any sinks and drains, and the cesspools were overflowing into the ditch, which, here and there obstructed, formed a succession of foul and stinking pools, from four to six feet wide; whilst the earth of the gardens was perpetually saturated with the offensive moisture exuding from them.
“The want of drains, or their faulty construction, may render any situation unhealthy; nor must it be supposed that because high lands in the open country seldom require draining, that it is therefore little needed in elevated portions of a town, for in the latter there are always dirt and slops that require carrying away from the houses that produce them. And inasmuch as drains in high situations never get such a thorough washing out by rain and natural moisture as those do which, from being in lower grounds, receive a swollen and accumulated stream, the former require the greater attention to keep them from becoming foul and obstructed: and it is not a little remarkable that three elevated parts of the town of Derby are hardly ever exempt from fever. They are the Burton-road (district No. 2 in the table), Litchurch-street (district No. 3), and Parker’s Flats (district No. 12).