Sanitary Effects of Land Drainimj. 
159 
the doors of the iiihabitants, very few of tlic cottages being provided with 
privies, or, if there be any, tliey only add to the general nuisance from 
being open and without drains." 
Mr. Oldham, the medical officer of the Chesterfield union, 
gives the following account of his district : — 
" Wessington is situated upon an elevation, but the houses are ar- 
ranged around a green or unenclosed conmion, upon the surfiice of 
which are a great number of small pools, which, for the most part, are 
stagnant. In the winter season they overflow, and at tliis season the 
neighbourhood appears less infected with fever. In the summer 
months, and greater part of the spring and autumn, they are stagnant, 
and undoubtedly a fruitful source of malaria ; indeed the neighbour- 
hood of Wessington is scarcely ever free from fever at these seasons of 
the year. 
" It perhaps may not be amiss to mention, I have attended a number 
of persons in the neighbourhood of this common who have been attacked 
•with fever, who were at the same time well fed, and lived in comfortable 
and tolerably well-ventilated houses." 
He then adduces instances, and proceeds — 
" From the facts before mentioned, I am led to conclude that the de- 
composition constandy going on in these small pools is the source of the 
malaria, and that the malaria so engendered propagates fever. 1st. 
Because there are cases of fever in this locality nearly all the year. 
2nd. Because paupers, and persons who are better fed, and live in more 
comfortable and better ventilated houses in the neighbourhood of this 
green or common, are attacked with the disease, and, I may say, almost 
indiscriminately. 3rd. Because during the years I have attended the 
paupers of the district, there has scarcely been a case of fever in the 
winter season when the pools are overflowed, and the atmosphere is 
colder, and consequently unfavourable to fermentation and decomposi- 
tion. In my opinion the only method to remedy this evil would be to 
drain the common, which is small, and its situation being elevated, 
would greatly facilitate its drainage. The condition of a iew of the 
smaller and more confined of the tenements might he greatly im- 
proved." 
Mr. R. Reynolds, one of the medical officers of the Dore 
union, thus describes in his report the district where some fever 
cases occurred : — 
" Of those cases the six first have occurred on Colston Common, a 
small marshy spot, never drained, and containing several jiools ex- 
tremely unhealthy, from decaying vegetables that never are removed. 
This year the same families have been again attacked, and shall be so 
every year till that nuisance be removed. In a medical point of view, 
such commons are injurious, and they are extremely expensive to the 
unions, for they cause fever, asthma, and rhumatism, from their inci- 
pient moisture, thus injuring the labouring classes, and heavily taxing 
the parish. 
" The four next have occurred at a place' called Toad Ditch : it well 
