TYPHOID FEVER IN PONSONBY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9009, 23 March 1888, Page 3

TYPHOID FEVER IN PONSONBY.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —The recent report of Dr. Stock well,' the City Health Officer, mentions, as amongst the possible causes of the present) epidemic of typhoid fever in Ponsonby, the existence of " Hellaby's Slaughter and Boiling Down Works. That these works are amongst the causes of the present alarming visitation can scarcely be doubted by any person paying their unsavoury locality a visit. The concentration of vilo smells along the road in front of them, and around by the beach behind them, can be paralleled in very few places either in or out of the colony. These works are within a quarter of a mile of the western boundary of the city, and are so placed that the vile odours arising from them are wafted over the city by the prevailing winds for three-fourths of the year. During the late hot weather, westerly winds prevailed in an unusual degree for the time of the year, and the odours of Hellaby's works were swept across the city at a time when they would do the greatest mischief to health, and that portion of Ponsonby lying nearest to them has had such a visitation of fever as never occurred before. These facts would point to a necessity for the removal of the works in question to a greater distance from the city, and the appointment of a strict and independent! supervision over them, with heavy penalties to be inflicted for any infraction of such laws of cleanliness as might reasonably be made for their government. The control of such works, in the interests of health, is committed to the local boards or councils, but, as these bodies derive an amount of fees from such concerns, important to their revenue, they are unlikely to so interfere with them as to lead to their suppression, and are tempted to sacrifice the public health to their desire to have increased spending powers. If the fees for private slaughter-houses and similar works were not made payable to local bodies, but were to become revenue for hospitals, there would be less willingness on the part of local bodies to grant them the necessary licences. If the Newton Borough had refused a licence to Messrs. Hellaby, they could have had no offensive works on the windward side of the city, and in such' close proximity to it. That works of this character are productive of fever is abundantly apparent from facts constantly presenting themselves. During the time that the city slaughtering was carried on in Newmarket fevers were prevalent in that locality, but now they are scarcely known there. When there was no slaughtering on the western side of the city fever was almost unknown in Ponsonby, but now, over the whole area in which the odours of Hellaby's works are a nuisance, fever has been alarmingly prevalent. The experience relative to slaughter works work in Auckland is merely a repetition of what was felt in the old countries, and to such an extent had the evil prevailed there that, in A.D. 18-17, a parliamentary inquiry was made into the whole case, which resulted in the removal of slaughter-houses and their accessories away from centres of population. Amongst the evidence submitted to a selecb committee of the House of Commons at that) time, was the following, which will serve as a sample of the whole: — " Dr. Jordan Roche Lynch had lived and. practised for the last fifteen years in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, the sanitary state of which was most defective. The slaughter-houses have a most injurious effect upon the district; they generate fever, render the most simple diseases malignant, and shorten the duration of life. In Bear Alley, a lane running from Farringdonstreet to the old wall of the city, called Break-neck Steps, there is a slaughter-house behind six or seven houses, which are inhabited by the humblest classes of society. The stench is intolerable, arising from the slaughtering of the cattle, and the removal of the faacal matter, the guts, the blood, and the skins of the animals. When they clean the guts, the matter is turned out; some of the heavier parts are preserved to be carted away, but a great deal of it is carried into the sewers, which have gully holes ; and in the summer months, the heat acting upon the faecal matter, causes its decomposition, and carburetted and sulphuretted hydrogen gas and carbonic acid gas, all of which are fatal to animal life, are disengaged, and rush out of the gully-holes, so that a blind man's nose will enable him to avoid approaching these outlets. Whenever he (Dr. Lynch) goes into places or houses contiguous to the slaughterhouses, he is compelled to hold his nose all the time he is there—the stench is so great. He has patients in all those houses. They are never free from the effects of it; and when the people there are dangerously ill, he is without the hope, by any exercise of skill, of restoring them to health. The people where such smells are, drink ; it is a kind of instinct—they fly to they fancy thai; the stimulus resists the noxious agency of the foul air they are breathing ; and they are right; malaria, such as is generated in these slaughter-houses, is a narcotic poison ; it oppresses both body and mind; and under the influence of this physical and mental depression, they instinctively resort] to the gin-shop, which aggravates their distresses, by extracting from them the means of living perhaps better than they do." The Auckland City Council, in their capacity of Local Board of Health, are about) to be certified, under the Public Health Act, with a view to the suppression of the nuisance at Hellaby's Works. It is to be hoped that the discussion of this important! matter may be carried on publicly in the Council and not privately in a committee, so that ratepayers may have an opportunity of witnessing the faithfulness of their representatives in the interests with which they have entrusted them. It appears that the Council in secret committee have ordered that private nuisances shall be sought! out, and suppressed. This can, of course, easily be efiected, as private individuals are weak in contest with the Council, and it is well that this should be done, but it is to be hoped that the Council will have courage enough to grapple with more influential creators of nuisances, and will take such measures as will make our city healthy.—X am, &c., Hygiene.