In November 1892, High Blantyre and Auchentibber were hit by a serious outbreak of infectious diseases. Reports told of enteric fever (typhoid) spreading through almost every household in Clyde Row, leaving families in despair. It was said in the paper “in every household, a patient is either recovering, presently at the height of the fever, or in the early stages of it.” Dr McLintock, the district’s medical officer, linked the outbreak to the insanitary conditions of local homes, quarry holes and poor sanitation…..a grim reminder of how vulnerable mining communities were to illness.
The situation was no better in Merry’s Rows at Stonefield, where more cases were recorded, though by late November the worst appeared to be easing. Adding to the misery, an epidemic of measles swept through the rows, sometimes striking several children in the same family, confined to the same overcrowded room. In November that year, one family had 6 members all struck down with measles and in the same house at the same time, a corpse in the back room of one of their children.
These accounts show just how precarious life once was in Lanarkshire’s mining villages, where disease could spread rapidly and devastate entire households.
👉 Can you imagine how families coped when several children in the same room were struck down at once? This rarely seen image shows one of the homes at Merry’s Rows.
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