Eaton, Dorman B. (Dorman Bridgman), 1823-1899; Public health -- New York (State) -- New York; Sanitation -- New York (State) -- New York
Fourteenth Ward: There have been attended in this district, during
the last year, over 200 cases of typhoid and typhus fever by one
dispensary physician; also, 70 cases of dysentery, and 50 cases of
smallpox. There is one particular locality which has contributed to the
spread and intensity of the fever contagion, viz.: the little street
known as Jersey Street. It is always filthy, and the effluvia arising
therefrom is extremely offensive. The privies are generally full nearly
to overflowing, and the yards are also in a dirty condition, heaps of
refuse matter being allowed to remain and to accumulate continually
in many of them. There is no sewer in this little street, though the
streets at each end are sewered.
[Illustration: A PERPETUAL FEVER-NEST: REAR TENANT-HOUSES IN WASHINGTON
STREET, 1865]
[Sidenote: Where Disease Flourishes]
Tenth Ward: The most prominent diseases during the past year have been
phthisis, typhoid and scarlet fevers, cholera infantum, dysentery,
smallpox, and diphtheria. They were most prevalent in the poorest part
of the district, having the lowest ground, the filthiest streets, and
the most dense population of poor and careless people, who are crowded
in the numerous tenant-houses, shanties, and small dwellings, which
were built for one or two families, but are now made to contain from
five to ten.
Nineteenth Ward: The diseases that have chiefly prevailed during the
past season are dysentery, diarrhoea, cholera morbus, cholera infantum
and the exanthematous fevers. They were of the most frequent occurrence
in the most crowded and insalubrious quarters.
Fifteenth Ward: Since the commencement of the survey, scarlet fever,
typhoid fever, smallpox, and cholera infantum have prevailed in the
tenant-houses of this ward. Six cases of smallpox occurred in one of
three thickly peopled rows of such dwellings, and the disease was
communicated to a child in an adjacent street, who had been playing in
the infected neighborhood. Seven cases of typhoid also occurred in a
court among children, and this was within a few doors of better class
houses.
Eleventh Ward: Typhus and typhoid fevers have been found prevailing
in all sections of this district. Smallpox, scarlatina, measles, and
pulmonary diseases are met with in almost every street. Typhus is the
most typical of the preventable diseases that abound in the Eleventh
Ward. Cholera infantum and obstinate diarrhoeal maladies were prevalent
in the rear tenements and throughout the lowest streets during the
summer and autumn.
To give you an idea of the wide prevalence of these diseases, I will
notice one or two more in detail.
[Sidenote: Smallpox]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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