The use of pure water : no. 2 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women.

Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The use of pure water : no. 2 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    But, unfortunately, the cottagers in this parish have taken a perverse fancy into their heads, to make pits close to their doors and windows, into which they throw all the waste and refuse substances of their houses, leaving them to decay and putrefy there as manure. They have, generally, small gardens round their dwellings, but they dig the manure-pits close to their doors, so that they may not have to walk a few yards further when they have anything to throw in. Very often, too, there are pigsties, and even stables for donkeys and ponies, by the sides of the manure- pits. The immediate consequence of all this is, that when any one walks in among these cottages, he finds his nose offended, directly, by all kinds of foul smells. The people, themselves, get so used to these smells, that they do not appear to mind them. Sometimes, indeed, they seem to have been trained by custom, rather to like them than otherwise. But there is also another consequence which follows in the company of these smells: the parish is, commonly, not free from infectious fever, for months at a time. I have seen this horrible disease again and again, stalk slowly through the parish, occupying months, and even years, by its progress; passing hy clean and well- kept cottages, but stopping at every one, where there were manure-pits and pigsties, and seizing from them victims, sometimes two and three, and sometimes more. I have known the fever to cling, for months, to the same dwelling, until manure-pits close by, were removed, either from their owners being at length