Catalogue description Content: Folios 251-254. Letter from David Evans, [Medical Officer] at the Llanfyllin...

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Details of MH 12/16545/182
Reference: MH 12/16545/182
Description:
Content: Folios 251-254. Letter from David Evans, [Medical Officer] at the Llanfyllin Union Workhouse, to the Poor Law Board. As requested by the inspector Mr Doyle [Andrew Doyle] he has drawn up dietary tables for the workhouse and encloses them. He has not interfered with the hall diet but suggests it needs alteration as the quantity of oatmeal it contains is 'injurious to health'. In almost two years the workhouse has not been free from diarrhoea or a skin disease resembling the itch, though not infectious: these disappear when the diet is changed. The breakfast is thick gruel made with water, not milk as in most workhouses, and supper is thick ude, made with oatmeal, on six nights out of seven. At present the inmates' bread is made from wheat flour: Evans has suggested replacing some of this with barley flour which would provide extra bread at no additional expense. He also suggests alternative breakfasts, that merely boiling bones for broth or soup is extravagant, and that use of a digester would improve the quality and quantity achieved. For dinner he suggests substituting herring or suet pudding for rice, currently served twice a week. He asks for the tables to be returned. Enclosed is a table headed 'Sick Diet' with details of food and drink to be served at breakfast, dinner and supper to men and women; a further table headed 'ordinary diet for convalescents, lying-in women, scrofulous and other weak persons' gives similar details. Also enclosed is a sheet giving further recommendations for the diet allowed to lying-in women and infants, and a table headed 'Full Diet' setting out food and drink for men and women for breakfast, dinner and supper with instructions as to how the food should be prepared. Annotation: referred to Mr Doyle [Andrew Doyle] who suggests sending a copy of the letter to the guardians for comment. Paper Number: 14811/1849. Poor Law Union Number 621. Counties: Montgomeryshire.
Date: 1 May 1849 - 31 May 1849
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description

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