“… Some of the new houses are built upon garden mould or old ‘slop shoots,’” wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington in 1870–1; “these thin and flimsy shells of lath and plaster truly merit the term ‘slop buildings.’ A dangerous moisture and miasma arises from houses built upon such an unhealthy foundation.”
How disastrous the results were to the inhabitants is pointed out by several Medical Officers of Health.
The Medical Officer of Health for Mile-End-Old-Town wrote (1866):—
“… Many open places now built upon, or being built upon, have been for years the receptacles for all kinds of animal and vegetable refuse, and have become thoroughly impregnated with the products of their decomposition…. The result to the health of the occupants is daily realised by the excessive number of zymotic diseases and deaths which occur in them.”
The Medical Officer of Health for Limehouse wrote:—
“Ask about the general health and the houses. ‘Never been well since coming in, and the children always ailing; and my husband says he feels more refreshed when he comes from his work than after he gets up in the morning. And then everything spoils; meat put into a cupboard is musty in a night. One can keep nothing.’
“These are all new houses.”
And a few years later, referring to this same subject, he wrote:—
“A half mile off, a few years ago, there were some acres of gravel pits. The gravel had gone for road-making, &c. The large pit was then filled up on invitation of the owner, with the aid of the scavenger and others, with all the slush and filth of a large circle of contributors. When this fund of abominations became consolidated, it was built over in the usual style. They were soon occupied by tenants and lodgers. Now this site during the epidemic (of cholera) has been a great slaughter field—the mortality was shocking.”
And he added, “there are thousands of such houses built about London.”