exporting of coal and other minerals and of manufactured produce is another important part of the trade of the port. There is no present lack of employment nor any exceptional destitution in the town.

APPENDIX.

No. 16.

On Yellow The local government of Swansea is in the hands of a mayor and Fever at corporation, who are the local board of health. Certain functions Swansea, by relating to the shipping of the port are vested in the harbour trustees, Dr. Buchanan. the customs officers, and the coast guard.

modation.

The town is not very closely built on, except on the west side of the Government. North Dock, where there are a good many small ill-ventilated courts. House accomThe houses of the labouring class are far from being of the worst sort, and they are not as over-crowded as is common in large seaport towns. Their worst sanitary defects consist in their sometimes low and confined situation, and in the absence of sufficient outside conveniences. There are 17 registered common lodging-houses in Swansea, and about an equal number into which tramps are occasionally received illegally.* The lower part of the town is all supplied with public sewers, but the houses of this part do not all use them, many of them still having cesspools. The sewerage of the upper part of the town has not yet been carried out. The main sewer of the town enters the harbour between the entrances to the North and South Docks. The outfall for Sewerage and the sewerage of the hamlet of St. Thomas, and also the outfall for house drainage. the small sewer that drains the island, are into the east branch of the river just above its entrance into the harbour. All the outfalls are below high-water but above low-water mark. The sewer from the island receives in the main only surface water and slops. All the privies but one on the island discharge into cesspools. The gullies are all trapped, and charcoal boxes are fitted to the ventilating holes.

No sewage has entered the North Dock for the last four years. There North Dock. is a constant movement of water of small extent in the North Dock, flowing out as vessels are "locked" in passing between the harbour and dock, and entering by the Swansea Canal at the head of the docks. When the canal supply fails to keep the water to a sufficient level in the North Dock, there is an arrangement for pumping sea water into it from the South half-tide basin.

The water supply of Swansea is from reservoirs some distance off Water supply. the town, which are fed by streams and springs. The water is very good in quality, free from organic contamination, and supplied on the continuous system at the rate of some 30 gallons per head per day, but from this estimate a considerable deduction must be made for the water used by the railways and manufactories. Measures are at present being taken for an increased supply of very pure water.

Many thoroughfarest and private courts in Swansea are extremely Paving. defective in their paving, and as a consequence are either muddy or dusty, as the weather goes, but always dirty.

* The sanitary inspector finds difficulty in getting a conviction from the magistrates for taking lodgers into an unregistered house, inasmuch as the magistrates require evidence that the lodgers are different people, from one night to the other, before they consent to regard the house as a common lodging-house. And this evidence they insist on, even though it is admitted that members of several families occupy a single

room.

†The bad paving is a very widely spread evil throughout the town, and nothing can be more desirable for health than that it should be made good. But most of the places where the paving is bad are technically private streets. The surveyor has recommended that many such streets should be adopted by the board of health. But the town clerk points out that they ought to be paved, channelled, and properly laid out by their owners before the board adopts them. The town clerk also is said to hold that the owner of a private court cannot be compelled to pave it, unless a Duisance is proved.

APPENDIX.

No. 16.
On Yellow
Fever at
Swansea, by
Dr. Buchanan,

Copper smoke.

Ordinary death-rate.

Prevalence of chief diseases.

It is impossible not to mention the "copper smoke" of Swansea among the conditions that would be expected to affect health. But any effect that it may have in this way is stated to be small, and to be obscured by other influences.

The ordinary rate of mortality in the registration district of Swansea and Gower was 20-23 per 1,000 in the 10 years 1851-60. But in the town of Swansea proper the death-rate is more considerable than this, reaching to 23 or 24 per 1,000.

The prevalence of the principal causes of death for the registration district is shown in the following table from the Parliamentary Return No. 12, Session 1863, where the corresponding numbers for England and Wales are added for the sake of comparison, but as regards the town proper similar statistical information for recent years cannot be given.

Ordinary continued fever,

An excess of phthisis and lung disease in the adult, of small-pox and of brain diseases (probably convulsions) in children, with a fever rate as high as the needlessly high rate of England, are the only unfavourable points, among many favourable ones, that are to be gathered from this table. Probably some of these causes are just those which operate more in the town than in the country parts of the district to raise the mortality.

The prevailing type of continued fever of Swansea is typhoid with rose spots. True typhus is of very rare occurrence. Fever is stated not to be especially prevalent in the low-lying parts about the docks. There has been no exceptional amount of fever in the present year, perhaps even less than usual, and none of any consequence in the

vicinity of the docks.

There has been no relapsing fever for a great many years. One case that occurred a year ago, described to me by a physician in Swansea as a possible example of this disease, was out of all question a case of typhoid.

APPENDIX.

No. 16.

On Yellow
Fever at

Swansea, by

In 1863-4 there was a serious epidemic of scarlatina in Swansea, and diphtheria was also very prevalent. Last winter measles was Dr. Buchanan. epidemic, but not very fatal. Diphtheria is stated to be now present. and other As to intermittents, most of the medical men agree that they are of very rare occurrence, but Dr. Paddon has found brow ague common in his practice, which does not lie, however, in the lowest parts of the

town.

fevers.

Intermittents.

None of the practitioners of Swansea have ever seen yellow fever in Previous the town before the present outbreak. Some of them remember cases yellow fever convalescing from yellow fever having been brought into the port, but in Swansea. they never knew the disease to extend to a resident in the town. Dr. Padley has not unfrequently seen persons suffering from the remittent fever of the West Indies, usually convalescent on their arrival, but sometimes having the fever with remissions afterwards. They usually recover, and have not been known to communicate the disease.

It is not, however, so certain that yellow fever has never before appeared at Swansea, among persons employed on infected Cuban ships on their arrival. Mr. W. Rosser, keeper of the light and meteorological registrar, has furnished me with the following information, dated 20th October 1865, respecting instances of yellow fever suspected to have occurred at the port previous to the outbreak of the present year.*

The first positive case of yellow fever which I can certify is as follows: Benjamin Davies, pilot of this port, piloted a brig called Alderman Pirie, which arrived here from Cuba with a cargo of copper ore (some of the crew having died on the passage home of yellow fever). He boarded her on the 26th July 1843 in the Channel, remained on board that day at the Mumbles Roads, entered the harbour on the following day, 27th, repaired to his home as soon as the ship was moored, complained of violent pain in his head, and died the following day, 28th, exhibiting all the symptoms of yellow fever. This information I obtained yesterday from the widow of the deceased.

The second case. The Henrietta barque arrived into this port from Cuba with copper ore in the month of August 1851. William Gammon, a respectable sailor, was employed to go on board the Henrietta as shipkeeper. He was (while on board) taken ill, went home on the 25th of the above month, and the following day, 26th, was a corpse, of unmistakeable yellow fever. Upon his first been taken ill, his brother, Benjamin Gammon (also a sailor), not knowing the complaint in its first stages, went on board the same vessel to retain the situation for his relative. He was almost immediately taken ill in the same way as his brother William, but having obtained the prompt services of three of the medical gentlemen, as well as that of an old captain, he providentially recovered, from whom, and also the widow of the deceased, I obtained the foregoing particulars on the past day.

Third case. In July 1864, Samuel Dawkin, a shipkeeper, went on board the barque Mangosteen which came from Cuba, to act in that capacity (fever having been on board previous to her arrival). He was suddenly taken ill, and on the third day a corpse, and in the opinion of his brother, David

* An opinion of Dr. Paddon, although it is not extensively shared by other prac titioners in Swansea, deserves to be recorded here. It is that after a vessel has arrived from Cuba with sick persons who have afterward died on shore (though he cannot be sure that the imported disease was yellow fever) a special malignity has been observable in the common gastric fever of the town, the gastric symptoms proper being more intense, and delirium coming on earlier than in ordinary times, with a greater tendency to nervous collapse. This has occurred to Dr. Paddon to notice on three or four occasions, the mortality of fever at such times being raised to 30 per cent. of the attacks in the adult.

APPENDIX.

No. 16. On Yellow Fever at

Swansea, by

Dr. Buchanan.

Previous yellow fever in crews of

vessels coming to Swansea.

Meteorology.

Circumstances of arrival of Hecla.

Dawkin, to whom I am indebted for the facts, it was a confirmed case of yellow fever. The cases I have thus furnished you with were all known to myself at the time of their occurrence, as I was well acquainted almost daily with the deceased men and their habits. I believe you will consider them to be fully authenticated.

Respecting the occurrence of yellow fever, of late years, among the crews of Cuban ships arriving at Swansea, the following facts were obtained from a book kept to show the "receipt of wages and effects of deceased seamen." Of vessels arriving in 1862 the San Jose lost two of her crew from yellow fever at Cuba; the Florence one; the Cornwall lost ten of her crew from the same disease, five at Cuba and five at sea; the Ellen lost eight of her crew from it, seven at Havannah, and one on her passage home; the Hampshire lost one at Cuba of the same fever; the Mangosteen lost one man from "fever" at Cuba; the Countess of Bective lost five of her men from yellow fever, and one from brain fever at Cuba; and the Dorsetshire and Cobrero each lost four from yellow fever at Cuba. Of ships arriving in 1863, the Florence and Stains Castle had each lost one man at Cuba of yellow fever; the Cornwall had lost three, one at Cuba, and two on her way home, from the same disease; the San Jose had lost one at Cuba. Of ships arriving in 1864, the Dorsetshire had lost two men from yellow fever at Cuba; the Mangosteen had lost one at sea from "fever;" the Pedro Ferrer one at Cuba from yellow fever.

Of 24 Cuban vessels that have discharged their crews at Swansea in the present year three only have lost part of their crew from yellow fever; the Augusta Schneider one; the Victoria two on the voyage; and now the Hecla.

As to cases of yellow fever that recovered, similar information was not so easily accessible.

I am indebted to Mr. W. Rosser for the meteorological tables placed in the Supplement, which show how remarkably the present season differed from its predecessors at Swansea, especially its very high temperature and want of rain. Reference will hereafter be made to these tables, to show how the atmospheric conditions of Swansea altered in the second week of the present October.

§ II.

On Friday, September 8, the Hecla barque, a wooden sailing vessel, William Clouston master, returning from Cuba to Swansea with copper ore, was boarded at 5 p.m. by George Morgan, a Swansea pilot, 15 miles to N.E. of Lundy Island [and therefore about 25 miles off Swansea]. He found her in charge of a Bristol Channel pilot, who gave up charge, and returned to his own boat. The master informed Morgan that he had a man on board sick of dropsy, that he had lost three of his crew on the voyage home, was in consequence short-handed, and desired Morgan to send his boat ashore for four or five men to assist him in coming in. This he accordingly did, and five men came off. The vessel reached the Mumbles roadstead, came to anchor there about 9 p.m., and showed a light through the night. At daylight on Saturday September 9 the ensign was hoisted, and the ship's number shown. The steam tug came up about 6 a.m., and towed the Hecla in, in the ordinary course. Not a word was said to the pilot about yellow fever, and he had no idea that the men died of that disease. The last vessel that had arrived from Cuba, less than a fortnight before, had had no sickness on board, and the pilot had no reason, particularly as the

Hecla had a clean bill of health, to believe that the sickness on board was of an infectious character.*

APPENDIX.

The Hecla entered Swansea Harbour at 9 a.m. on September 9, No. 16. On Yellow showing no quarantine flag, and giving no indication that sickness was Fever at on board. She was placed in the North Dock, alongside the Cobre Swansea, by Wharf, in the usual discharging berth. A good many people went Dr. Buchanan. on board her as she entered the dock.§ Within an hour of the ship's arrival, two passengers were landed with their luggage, and the crew September 9. had left the ship, and had distributed themselves over the town. Three men were landed sick; two of whom were recovering from "fever;" one the captain reported ill of dropsy. Within three hours of the vessels arrival in port the hatches were removed, a stage rigged, and gangs of men commenced discharging the cargo.|| About noon the sanitary inspector came to the mayor, told him of the arrival of the Hecla, and stated to him that deaths were reported to have occurred on the vessel in her homeward passage, and that one seaman had been landed from the ship seriously ill. The mayor, J. Clarke Richardson, Esq., went at once to the collector of customs and to the master of the Hecla, and learnt that the rumour about sickness on board was true, that some of the deaths had been from yellow fever, and that the sick seaman was suspected to be suffering under the same disease. Thereupon the mayor requested Dr. Paddon to accompany him, and they went together to Welcome Court, where the man, James Saunders, who had been removed from the Hecla, lay sick. He had before been visited by two medical men (Messrs. Harrington** and Thomas), who had certified the case to be one of yellow fever. This was the man who was stated by the captain to be ill of dropsy. Dr. Paddon found him lying in bed, in a wretched room of a small dirty house, dying of exhaustion from fever, without any sign of dropsy; his body tinged yellow. He was so near death that no detailed examination could be made. The mayor and Dr. Paddon had scarcely left the house when the people ran after them, to say that Saunders was dead.¶ Dr. Paddon thereupon certified that he died of "fever, probably yellow fever."

At this time, soon after noon on September 9, a good deal of public First precauanxiety existed about the Hecla, and about the possibility of disease tions. spreading from the house in Welcome Court or from the crew.

Under

Dr. Paddon's advice, the mayor caused the following precautions to be taken :-The body of Saunders was put into a tarred sheet, and buried within four hours of his death; the house where he died was immediately emptied, and disinfected with limewash and chloride of lime; and for further safety all the houses in the court were similarly treated. The bedding and clothing of the dead man were destroyed, and the house was again cleansed and disinfected before it was allowed to be tenanted, a week after. The mayor also set the police to find out the passengers and crew of the Hecla, and sent the sanitary inspector, in company with Mr. Evans,†† to have their clothes and rooms and persons fumigated with chlorine.tt

Evidence of pilot to Mr. Cullum, officer of customs appointed to inquire as to breach of quarantine by the master and others of the Hecla.

† Evidence of Custom House officer to Mr. Cullum.

Dr. Paddon to the Board of Trade.

Statement to self by Norman; Case I.

Dr. Paddon to the Board of Trade.

Statement of mayor to self.

**Mr. Harrington was acquainted with yellow fever, having seen it abroad.

tt Mr. Evans is lecturer on chemistry at the Normal College at Swansea, and is connected with the corporation as gas examiner.

Statements of mayor and Dr. Paddon.