Bournemouth History: Typhoid Epidemic Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

Lost2011: This one has disappeared. I'm going to archive this one but keep the series for now. The bonus for this one was X=9. I will amend the other cache pages linked to this series. Thanks to everyone who enjoyed this cache (particularly small people and those who loved to wait for the smokers to disappear!) :)

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Hidden : 1/27/2014
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

This is my town. I live here. I love it.

This series of 10 stand alone caches, with a bonus at the end, will take you on a journey through Bournemouth, visiting a mix of urban and residential areas, and hopefully learning a little bit of history along the way. For the most part I have tried to make the caches accessible to all.

Following the support and kind comments I received from the "Bournemouth's Past" series, I posted on a social media site for thoughts and suggestions for another series about the town I love. I already had a few ideas left over after the first series, and I was certain my geocaching friends could help me with enough material to make another series, which they did in abundance! I couldn’t choose them all, and some locations weren’t suitable, but I hope you like the choices I have made. Many thanks my friends!

You can find the original "Bournemouth’s Past" series at the following link, which will take you to the most popular cache of the series, Jon Egging, and you will be able to find the other caches in the series from there.

In this "Bournemouth History" series, each cache has a number needed to locate the bonus cache, so you may wish to make notes as you go along.

Due to the urban nature of this series and the high probability of muggles, I have tried to make all the caches easy to find by providing detail in the hints, so please use the spoiler.
The Bournemouth Typhoid epidemic struck in 1936 and triggered no fewer than 718 cases of the feared disease.

Dr William Vernon Shaw, called in to trace the source of the outbreak, dubbed the Doctor Detective, knew initially of 30 notified cases scattered through Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole, and he swiftly deduced that the common factor was the drinking of milk that came from one distributor.

The dairy was Frowds that was based at Sandbanks Road, Poole, with 11 branches across the conurbation. The problem was that the dairy received milk from 37 farms with the milk – unpasteurised – mixed together.

First, he checked the staff at the dairy itself including churn washers, yardsmen, storekeepers and bottlewashers. All clear. Then it was on to investigating the farms, ranging from large herds to family’s with five or six cows. And soon Dr Shaw focused on five smallholdings along a stream where a farmer’s wife and 12-year-old son were taken ill. Four supplied Frowds.

The sick wife, who subsequently died, had probably been responsible for much of the infected milk… but she could not be the initial cause.Why? Because she had not been infected as early as July 20 when, the doctor believed, the milk supply was first contaminated. Dr Shaw then turned his attention to the stream and tests revealed that bacteria normally present in the human bowel were present.

He started to search the stream itself, locating a pipe, half a mile upstream, discharging effluent. And examinations proved it contained the typhoid bacteria. Where did the pipe lead to? A 446-gallon tank that took sewage and storm water from Merley House that fed the stream when it overflowed.



And, of the 16 occupants of Merley House, the carrier was found to be Captain Angus V Hambro, a prominent businessman and former MP for Dorset, who was elected to Parliament again in 1937. He had suffered a severe disease many years earlier, having travelled abroad, which Dr Shaw now took to have been typhoid. His name wasn’t revealed at the time but Dr Shaw’s report states that he was “most distressed to learn that he could even remotely be associated with the outbreak.”

The only question remaining was how the infection got from the stream to the milk? That was never nailed. It could have come from cows paddling in the stream drinking the water and passing the germs in their milk. Or contaminated udders? Or the cows passing contaminated urine that somehow got into the milk. Or possibly even milk churns washed in the stream? There was no evidence, however, of this having occurred. Whatever the cause, the Bournemouth epidemic proved to be the worst milk-borne typhoid epidemic that the country had known.

Reports suggested that the cost of the epidemic was £23,000 for Bournemouth and £11,000 for Poole. Hotels suffered particularly badly from the publicity. Frowds Dairy went into receivership after the epidemic.

When the outbreak hit, there were only 98 isolation beds in Poole and Bournemouth (at Alderney and Gloucester Road hospitals). It led to a large house, Haddon Hall in Bournemouth being converted into a hospital providing a further 80 beds; Poole Road Hospital in Westbourne being vacated to provide 42 beds; a ward at Fairmile Infirmary, Christchurch, being vacated (49 beds); Poole Isolation Hospital at Alderney increased to 208 capacity; Salisbury isolation Hospital took 27 patients.



Bournemouth had 284 cases (31 people died), Poole had 205 cases (17 died) and Christchurch had 29 patients (three died).



This cache is positioned on the other side of the road to where Haddon Hall used to be, before it got demolished and replaced by an office block. The cache is at arms length for someone 6ft or over. It is possible to reach by stretching if you are less than 6ft, but a helping hands tool or equivalent may be more suitable. Once you have retrieved the cache you will need tweezers to help extract the log sheet.
FTF: None at present.
Bournemouth History series:
GC41YWV: Pier Bandstand (M)
GC4NTAN: Tucktonia (N)
GC4NTAP: The Shell House (P)
GC4NTAQ: Moordown Halifax Memorial (Q)
GC4NTAR: Racecourse (R)
GC4NTAT: Moordown Tram Depot (T)
GC4NTAV: Waterfront (V)
GC4NTAW: Winter Gardens (W)
GC4NTAX: Typhoid Epidemic (X)
GC4NTAZ: A338 Wessex Way [BONUS] - N50 MN.PQR W001. TV.WX4

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Fybggrq vagb oenpxrg ba cnexvat fvta.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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