July 3, Cases 2 Deaths 2
4, 1 0
5, 7 4
6, 12 2
7, 10 3
8, 11 3
9, 18 5
10, 22 7
11, 28 9
12, 10 3
13, 28 7
14, 27 6
15, 17 6
16, 29 7
17, 23 8
--- ---
Total, 245 Deaths, 72
_Board of Health, New York, July 20th, 1832._
TO WALTER BOWNE, Esq. President, &c.
Sir--I have the honour to transmit to your Board of Health, an
additional report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the
history and origin of the disease at the Bellevue Alms-house, &c.
ALEX. H. STEVENS, M. D. President.
The committee consisting of Drs. Bailey, Macneven, and A.
L. Anderson, to whom was referred the inquiry into the
origin of the malignant cholera in the Alms-house and the
different institutions connected with it, further report:
the Penitentiary, situated about five hundred feet from
the Alms-house, and containing three classes of criminals,
have no communication with one another; but the Bridewell
and Penitentiary prisoners have a common stairway to their
apartments; and the yards of the Female State and Female
Penitentiary prisoners are separated by a high open picket
fence, near to which the Penitentiary prisoners pass to and
from their work-house, and on the opposite side of the Female
State prisoners yard, and at a little distance is situated the
Cholera Hospital, first opened on the 5th or 6th of July. In
this building were confined, on the 1st of July, fifty-four
Female State, about one hundred and twenty Female Penitentiary,
and about fifty Bridewell prisoners; and the first person who
had malignant cholera in that prison was Ann Smith, taken up at
the Five Points, and sent there July 2d--she sickened on the
5th, and died the next day, and on the 7th, four more Female
Penitentiary prisoners had the disease. On the 8th of July, all
the remaining prisoners of this class were sent to Blackwell’s
Island, and put into a fresh white-washed building prepared for
them. The removal of those persons to a healthy residence, and
an unrestrained exercise in the open country air, appear to
have checked the development of that disease among them, for
not until the 10th did any of them sicken, when four of them
were taken with that disease, and since then seven more. Dr.
Spring, the physician stationed there, informed us that the
disease had become milder since their removal to the Island,
two only having died of thirteen patients, and the remaining
eleven, visited by us, were doing well, except one.
The first State prisoner had that disease on the 9th of July,
and eight more on the 12th and 13th, four each day; and since
that time five more, the greater part of whom have died. They
are all in one very large apartment, having three tier of
windows on one side only, but the three stories are one open
space from the top to the bottom of the building.
The first two cases occurred in the Bridewell class also on the
9th, the next on the 11th instant; since then, six more have
had the disease.
When at Blackwell’s Island yesterday afternoon, pursuing
our inquiries respecting the Female Penitentiary prisoners,
sent there from Bellevue, we considered it appertaining
to the duty assigned to us, to extend our inquiry to the
occurrences relating to the same subject, which happened on
that Island, the institution there being a part of the Bellevue
establishment. We were informed by Dr. Spring, the physician
stationed there, that the first case of malignant cholera which
occurred on the Island, was an Alms-house pauper, who slept
there, but worked on the Long Island farms; he was permitted to
go as far as Brooklyn, July 1st, but he frolicked in the city
all the next day, returned at night to Blackwell’s Island, and
slept out of doors all night, and sickened and died July 3d--no
other case took place there until the 11th, (three days after
the Female Penitentiary prisoners were removed from Bellevue,)
when three persons sickened and died the same day; one, a very
feeble black man, aged sixty-five; another, a black lad, who
had been much reduced by medical treatment for rheumatism--both
patients in the hospital, and able to take exercise out of
doors. Their building is about one hundred yards from that
occupied by the Female Penitentiary prisoners. The third, a
white pauper, aged sixty-five, who worked on the Long Island
farms, but slept on Blackwell’s Island, formerly in the
shanty now occupied by the sick blacks; but some days before
he sickened, he slept in a small building at a considerable
distance from his former lodging place; but he not being
under confinement, would go to any part of the Island when
unobserved, and without hindrance to the outside of the Black
Hospital.--Since then, three blacks have had that disease.
We were also informed by Dr. Spring, that no case of malignant
cholera had occurred among the two hundred and eight male
Penitentiary prisoners--that a lad, aged sixteen, who
frequently complained of being unwell, died on the 13th inst.,
after three or four hours sickness of common cholera. Those men
are employed in the open air, and their prison is in the most
perfect order; the air within was as free from any impure smell
as the atmosphere without. We were informed by Col. Woodruff,
the superintendent, that it was in contemplation to remove the
Bridewell prisoners from Bellevue to this prison--and asked our
opinion as to the propriety of the measure; we give it as our
opinion, that as there was already a large number of men now
confined there, and room only for about thirty more, that the
crowding of the prison at this time, and especially from places
where the malignant cholera existed, would be exposing the
health of the prisoners to some hazard.
We were also informed by John Targee, Esq., one of the
Commissioners of the Alms-house, that a boy, whose parents had
both died in Laurens street with the malignant cholera, was
sent from there in the beginning of July, to the house on Long
Island Farms, where there are a large number of pauper boys; he
sickened and died of that disease the day after, and no case of
that disease has since occurred.
The foregoing being all the facts which have come to our
knowledge after a strict examination, are respectfully
submitted.