PUBLIC HEALTH 100 YEARS AGO

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6884, 13 April 1929, Page 6

PUBLIC HEALTH 100 YEARS AGO

Appalling Conditions VERY HEAVY- DEATH RATE AT ALL AGES The usual weekly free public lecture under the auspices of the W.E.A. and Victoria University College was given at St. Andrew’s Memorial hall on Thursday evening. Mr. M. H. Oram presided, and the attendance was an indication that the course is being followed with sustained interest. The lecturer (Mr. A. E. Ernest Mandcr) commenced by giving a description of the living conditions of the people of England a hundred years ago, with special reference to such conditions as had a direct effect on the state of public health. Of the majority of the workers in the new industrial towns tho lecturer said that they never bathed, rarely washed, and very rarely washed or changed their underclothing. Tho streets were never swept, ana most of the garbage and foul water from the houses was thrown from tho windows into the street, or into the backyard. There ivas no scavenging, and outside London there was practically n/drainage or sewerage. Even in the best houses the sanitary arrangements were primitive inMho extreme; usually a cesspool m the back garden, either open or roughly boarded over. In the poorer quarters there might be one sanitary convenience to six or eight houses; and often as not this was erected over the boards covering the cesspool. There was no water supply laid on to tho houses; in tho better-class houses there was usually a pump to raise water fr °”L a well under the house; and m the work-ing-class ’ quarters only one pump to several houses. These people had no idea of germs, or the dangers ef infection or. contamination. There was no thought of any need for pure water; indeed, in most of )he mdu • trial towns there was very little water of any kind available. It was not until 1840-70 that any real attempt was made to give the towns a pure and adequate water supply.

Adulteration of Food. Again, a hundred years ago there was no check on tho adulteration 01 foods. Adulteration was practised all over the Country to an extent that seems almost incredible to us today. There were no regulations about the killin'*' of meat, and no check on the sale of tainted meat. There whs no attempt to’ ensure’ a jure milk supply, or to guard '.against' .contamination; or, adulteration.' ’ Slaughterhouses were right in the middle of the town, and there were no regulations, to prevent their becoming a menace to the public health. The stench'from, the slaughterhouse could almost be "cut with a knife.’,’ Another important fact was that a tax, house-duty, was assessed jon houses according to the number of windows in them. This windovr-tax was not repealed until 1851, and its natural consequence was that all but the wealthy had as few windows as possible in the houses. It seemed’as though it were the deliberate policy of Parliament to keep the houses of the'work-ing-class dark "and' ill-ventilated; but, of course, in reality it was merely that the importance of fresh air and sunlight were not yet understood. When we remomber all those facts, and the-fact that there was very little attempt at the isplation of infectious disease, the wonder is not that the death rate was so high and the state of public health so low; the wonder was that anybody could live at all under these conditions!

Death Rates—Then And Now. A hundred years ago there was a fearfully heavy death rate at all ages, especially under tlid age of five, ©nly one-third of all the children born ever reached that age. B'ub the adult death rato also was nearly 50 per cent, heavier than it is to-day. Cholera, smallpox, typhus, enteric influenza, scarlet' fever, diphtheria, and above all tubercular consumption took their toll. In the factory town's every fourth man' and woman would be dying by degrees of consumption. Typhus was nearly always raging in one part or another. In Glasgow, for instance, there were 62,000 cases of typhus (out of a population of 250,000) during the five years 1835-40. Cholera swept the country, again and again. In 1832 there were over 30,000 deaths from cholera in London alone. Smallpox became epidemic every few years, with the highest mortality rate of all. But tv.bercular consumption was the greatest scourge of ..all, for it was endemic everywhere, and the mortality rate was very nearly 100 per cent. All this made our modern visitations look, by comparison ,almost insignili-

cant. For instance ,our little epidemic of influenza in 191 S sent up the death rate in New Zealand for that year only to 15 per thousand—about half the ordinary normal death rate in the towns of England a hundred years ago. Improvement Agter 1840.

The lecturer proceeded to deal with the common idea that to-day we suffered from various""'' now ’ ’ diseases. This was not true. Even influenza was not by any means new, though there was comparative freedom from it between ISSO and 1890. As for cancer—of course the chief reason why more, people die of cancer to-day whs that so many more people lived to the ,cancer age.” When the average life was as short as it' was 100 years ago, we should hot' expect a large percentage to die of cancer—which rarely developed before 45 and was most common at 65. A hundred years ago there was, of course," much less danger of epidemics in the villages ,and‘there some people did live to considerable ages. Bait- all the authorities agreed that in the industrial towns a worker was "old 1 at 40. Very few who survived past that mostly they went' "'On the parish.” But the majority of workers died before 40. Mr. Mander them showed the steady fall in the death rato from. 1840 onwards. He" accounted for it by describing the provision of drainage and sewerage; the equipment' of houses with proper sanitary arrangements; the scavenging of the streets;' the provision (between 1840 and 1870) of pure and adequate water mpply to most of the towns; the efforts begun in 1860 to check the adulteration of food’, and the shle of tainted meat and of contaminated milk; the ' rapid develop; ment of tho hew art of nursing; the increase of medical knowledge; the discovery (between 1860 and 1880) of the relation of germs to disease; and to the fact that after 1840 there gradually developed the-principle of the compulsory notification and isolation of infectious diseases. The result of all these reforms, had been to reduce the death rate—to in? crease the- health and the average" length of life—very considerably. Put; ting the facts 'in the sitnpliest and clearest way ,one-third of all the children born a . hundred years ago/ died before. reaching the age of' five. But even excluding deaths tinder-the age of five, the death' raje to-day was only about .70 per cent., of what it was then; and ;the average length of life Was 55 years where formerly it was Only 38. At the close of tho lecture a number of interesting, pictures were shown on the scfoem. ;Jt~ was.. announced that next week’s subject would be "Education a hundred'years;'ago.”