The workhouse
  Poor food in the workhouse
Glossary
  Here is a table showing the diet of children aged two to three in the Rhayader workhouse.

Entry from workhouse rules

Opthalmia - an inflammation of the eye.
 
 
 

The poor diet, contaminated water supplies, and unclean and overcrowded conditions led to illness and disease. Dish of gruelThe most common of these being measles, opthalmia, small pox, dysentery, scarlet and typhus fever, and cholera.

Cholera victims turned blue and had terrible sickness and diarrhoea. At least half of those who caught cholera died. It was spread by unclean drinking water.

Dysentery was similar with many victims dying of dehydration.

There is more about diseases in the workhouse on the next page ...

More about workhouse diseases ...

 

 

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