Howard, R. (1844) A history of the typhus of Heptonstall-Slack, which prevailed as an endemic during the winter of 1843-4 ; accompanied by remarks on the sanatory state of that village. Published by William Garforth, Hebden Bridge, England. 83p.
Dr Robert Howard describes the diet, housing and social place of handloom weavers. He also describes the provision of water supply and outlines the poor sanitary measures and contamination of water with faecal matter. He recommends steps to improve housing conditions which he considered to be a “repository of filth and source of pernicious exhalation”. His research is note-worthy but less well known and influential than William Farr’s theory that “atmospheric impurities” or the “miasma” were responsible for disease such as cholera or John Snow’s subsequently accepted idea that ingestion through drinking polluted water was the actual mode of transmission.
Howard recognises the disease risk arising from contamination of water with faecal matter but tends to side with Farr in suggesting smell is the key factor. Although the miasma theory was eventually shown by Snow and others to be incorrect it provided scientific evidence for campaigners like Edwin Chadwick to successfully argue the case for Government investment in improved sanitation and clean drinking water provision.
In retrospect it is probable that Robert Howard was observing an outbreak of typhoid fever rather than typhus. Typhoid means “resembling typhus” and occurs through ingestion of food or water contaminated with the faeces of an infected person. Typhus, however, is a parasitic bacterium spread to humans from lice or sometimes rats – a mode of transmission first discovered in 1928 by Charles Nicolle for which he won the Nobel Prize.
Read a detailed extract from Robert Howard’s paper.