Suggestions in reference to the present cholera epidemic, for the purification of the water supply, and the reclamation of east London : with remarks on the origin of cholera poison, proofs given in facts connected with the sources of water supply in India, with illustrative incidents descriptive of successful preventive measures, and curative efforts / by William Sanderson.

  • Sanderson, William, C.E.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions in reference to the present cholera epidemic, for the purification of the water supply, and the reclamation of east London : with remarks on the origin of cholera poison, proofs given in facts connected with the sources of water supply in India, with illustrative incidents descriptive of successful preventive measures, and curative efforts / by William Sanderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    fv/V On any main route, nor being on the banks of a polluted river, having suffered terribly from the malady previously, I had a fair opportunity of judging whether or not the shutting off the former water supply of the upper stratum, would prevent the spread of the malady. I called meetings of the natives in their public places and circulated scraps printed in Mahratta and Rungree, containing information relative to the cause and spread of Cholera, advising them not to drink water except in their own wells, to avoid going- far from their homes, and if unhappily the scourge appeared, to have the patient placed immediately in a place I had prepared as a hospital, and to destroy by fire all clothing worn by the patient, whether recovered or not. And the result bore testimony to the accuracy of my views and conclusions. There was not one victim out of that body of 5000 inhabitants, except a few persons who obstinately rejected the advice given, and went to a large city SO miles off, and to other places where Cholera raged, and died away from their homes. There were fifty-seven cases of cholera, travellers who had been attacked elsewhere. These were received in a shed provided immediately7 without the town : I had no medical assistance, having been refused by Government on several previous applications, but I obtained the seivices of a dismissed “ hospital apprentice,” udio came to me about six months before this outbreak in a starving condition. He was a native Christian and a convert; his teachers had helped him to a knowledge of writing and accounts, and to the post of hospital apprentice; but having put off the restraints of his old religious faith, be became lewd and drunken, and u'as cast adrift, and thus found his way to me. With his aid I hired three other Madrassees and two sweepers, with a water-carrier, and my establishment was complete; and during the short period of eight days the fifty-seven Cholera patients were treated. Of these, thirteen died, and the remainder left in various states of conva- lescence, as they were able to resume the labours of travel. With reference to the treatment of these patients, it was the same that had been adopted in former emergencies, and at the end I will describe it in the relation of the facts connected with the successful treatment of a Cholera case, an Englishman now at home. The bodies of the victims, with all clothing which had been worn by any of the patients, were carefully burned, and the con- valescents were supplied with clothing from the native looms, and with turban and shoes at the expense of the municipal fund, to which the inhabitants subscribed liberally, in addition to their octroi payments, which formed the basis of the fund. Thus the said town was saved from Cholera by preserving the water from the pollution by percolation of rain water charged with decomposed