1802

Thomas Beddoes to the Mayor of Bristol, 5 March 1802

Sir

Many families have been suffering from a pestilential complaint, which has been lately raging throughout the United Kingdoms. There are few whom it has not alarmed; and, fewer still whom the report of its devastations has not reached, Bristol, we shall presently see, has been no way spared. I presume, therefore, that your mind may not be unprepared for a few observations on the means of immediately checking the progress of low fever, whenever it appears; and eventually, perhaps, of extinguishing febrile inspection.

A fever hospital, or house of recovery, was opened at Manchester in 1796. It was designed to receive poor patients on the first alarm of infection. You will find it natural that much unpopularity should originally attach to such an establishment. Public want of information concerning the manner in which contagion is propagated, excited fears lest the fever, should for ever spread from this receptacle as from a centre. – Under this terror many persons actually removed from its vicinity. But the plan was in fact crowned with complete success. The existing evils were diminished, and no new one produced; under the sanction of experience, a large addition is now actually making to the original building. At Liverpool and Dublin fever wards are now constructing. The same thing has been recommended in London, and promises to be carried into execution; perhaps may be already undertaken.

So far was infection from spreading about the Manchester fever-house, that the adjacent streets, which in eight months before its opening furnished 267 cases of fever to the infirmary, furnished but 25 in the eight months after. The frequency of the disorder was greatly lessened upon the whole, till late well known causes began their operation. But even then the advantage of the house of recovery was fully felt. And such is the advantage of medical aid in the early stage of fever – such the alacrity of the Manchester poor to seek it – such the accommodations at the establishment – and such the efficacy of a well-digested plan, that, in a letter before me, one of the physicians expresses a belief that the proportion of cures is greater than among patients attended at their own houses. But I can present you with a table, from which every one may form his own judgment.

In considering this table, you will not fail to remember to what state many of the objects are reduced by penury before they take the disease, and to what state they must often be reduced by the disease, before their friends seek relies for them at the house of recovery. Let me add, lest the circumstance should occasion misconception, that the addition of new words is intended to meet such an emergency as that of the late years. They wisely prefer a spacious fever-ward generally empty to a small one constantly crowded.

With the luxury of the building now going on at Liverpool, I shall not trouble you; but would gladly shew you what private papers I have concerning it, and communicate the plan.

The question then I think can hardly be, whether the plan is good, where fever frequently rages; but, does Bristol need such an one? Some seem to think that on the average of years there is little low fever at Bristol. But, alas! they pronounce, I fear, without any proper knowledge or minute investigation. What may be its frequency there in comparison with Manchester, Liverpool, or Dublin, I have no data for conjecturing; but from the nature of things it seems next to impossible that there should not be always misery enough of this description to demand that succour, which the place at present does not afford. At least, Sir, let us have the humanity to collect the evidence, and not, in compliance with vague opinion, close our ears to the cry of distress from the poor, nor our eyes to our own danger.

In the late epidemic, the number affected by fever in Bristol, was prodigious. The medical relief was often inadequate – frequently none was given. The established charities were probably overpowered by applicants, on the friends of the sick could not apply. A few months ago the accuracy of a statement from the Bristol Dispensary was questioned in London, on account of the enormous proportion of fever-patients. But in referring back there was no cause to suppress error: and for my own part, I had proofs enough that the prevalence of fever was as dreadful as the statement implied. People not medical may, I know, be said to mistake some other disease for fever. But this disorder is unhappily strongly marked; and such mistakes will seldom happen to persons accustomed to the sick poor. Now I have on my table a written statement from the visitors among the Strangers’ Friends; for I requested a deliberate opinion. They believe that of two thousand sick, who in the course of the last year past fell under their inspection, twelve hundred were ill of fever. On the same authority I learn, that within nineteen weeks, twenty-eight people lay down with fever in one house, in Back-street, (it is believed they had very little medical assistance); and that eight were buried out of a single house in Elbroad-street. Of the existence of misery, so widely spread, I have received various confirmations from the invalid poor, who resort in vain and increasing numbers to the Pneumatic Institution. Last Sunday I was applied to by a girl, who had been almost totally deprived of the use of her limbs by the spotted fever. Her father and mother, she said, had both died of the same disease, without relief or assistance.

Where the mass of misery of a particular species is so great at one time, is it credible that it should not exist at all times in a degree, especially as its proper and adequate causes are perpetually present? However, Sir, as I have already said, let us search dispassionately, but diligently. The extent of the establishment need but be proportioned to the exigency. Should there be little low fever in general at Bristol, a small house of recovery only will be in general requisite, unless we expand our ideas and provide for the worst.

Should the same call for a fever-ward be found to exist here as elsewhere, its erection would confer honour equally on the city and on its promoters. We have, you see, experience and example in favour of the measure. It would create a monument, sacred to the rescue of the poor, and the preservation of the rich from contagion. Wishing your official dignity may be distinguished by so happy an event, I am Sir, respectfully yours,

Thomas Beddoes

Clifton, March 5, 1802

Published: The Monthly Magazine, 13 (1 April 1802), 233–35