The Maidstone typhoid epidemic (11 September 1897 - 29 January 1898), was the largest typhoid epidemic the UK had experienced.
Context
Typhoid is an acute life-threatening bacterial illness, caused by eating contaminated food or water, or by cross contamination with infected faeces and urine. The risk of catching typhoid in nineteenth-century Britain and dying from it was a very real threat. The population of Maidstone was about 34,000 at the time, and at least 1,908 people caught typhoid.[1][2]
Outbreak
At least 132 people are known to have died, the majority dying outside the hospitals- either at home or in make shift temporary hospitals.[1] The medical officer stopped keeping a record of the deaths after early October 1897 so more people may have died. The epidemic was a ‘...turning point in public health...’; during the epidemic trials of water sterilisation using chlorination and the first immunisations with typhoid vaccine were carried out in Maidstone.[3]
The Board of Inquiry which was set up to establish the cause of the epidemic, found that it was due to contaminated water from the Farleigh Springs, one of three springs which supplied Maidstone.[1] This had been contaminated by faeces, deposited by typhoid-carrying hop-pickers camping nearby.[4] It was exacerbated by an increased level of rainfall before the epidemic, which created a high level of subsoil water which in turn contaminated the water supply.[5] The enquiry closed on 19 February 1898.[6]
Maidstone Borough Council was overwhelmed by people with typhoid requiring nursing care and had insufficient nurses to care for the typhoid epidemic victims. The Corporation of London supplied 100 nurses, including Edith Cavell, a probationer from The London Hospital to help in the epidemic.[7][8] Nurses volunteered from around the United Kingdom, and Eva Luckes, Matron of The London Hospital sent nine probationers including Edith Cavell to work in the epidemic, as well as others from the hospital's Private Nursing Institute.[8] Prominent nurse reformer, Ethel Gordon Fenwick visited the hospitals and wrote about her visits.[9]
The nurses and others who served in the epidemic were either given, or able to purchase a Maidstone typhoid epidemic Medal.
Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert had died from typhoid in 1861, which may explain her donation of £50 to the M.T.E. relief fund.[10]
Borough of Maidstone Typhoid Emergency Hospitals, 1897-1898
Hospitals were opened in a number of sites. Eleven local buildings were used to accommodate up to 339 people:
Hospital
Number of beds
Date of opening
Date of closure
Public Fever
26
29 September
Open During Inquiry
Tents
12
8 October
Open During Inquiry
Station Road
80
25 September
Open During Inquiry
Wesleyan Schools
35
4 October
6 January
Milton Street Mission
24
6 October
Open During Inquiry
Hedley Street School
17
7 October
8 December
Congregational School
20
11 October
11 December
Perry Street Mission
23
9 October
18 December
Padsole School
37
19 October
24 December
St Michaels School
33
28 October
20 January
St Luke's Mission
32
26 October
6 January
Fig 2: Table Produced for the Local Government Board of Inquiry in to the Maidstone Typhoid Epidemic.[5]
Staff who worked in the epidemic
As well as over 270 nurses members of the Army also worked, as well as volunteer cooks, laundry workers and many others.[11][8][12]
References
^ abcBorough of Maidstone, Report to the Local Government Board on the Epidemic of Typhoid fever 1897, London 1898, p.11
^Edith Louisa Cavell, Register of Probationers; RLHLH/N/1/5, 147; Barts Health NHS Trust Archives and Museums, London.
^ abcSarah Rogers, ‘The Nurses of the 1897 Maidstone Typhoid Epidemic: Social Class and Training. How representative were they of mid-nineteenth century nursing reforms?’ (Unpublished Master of Letters dissertation, Dundee, March 2016)