Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in relation to the cholera-epidemic of 1854.

Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in relation to the cholera-epidemic of 1854. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/132 (page 37)
    We cannot pass this very interesting part of our subject without expressing our regret that researches of so much importance could not have been commenced at an earlier date, and been made more comprehensive in their scope. Many reasons will appear in the course of our report, to justify us in saying that a very complete and exact inquiry into the chemistry of organic decomposition during the epidemic prevalence of cholera—especially into the suc- cessive transformations of animal refuse at such times— might furnish all-important information as to the charac- teristic poison of the disease. It M^as with this belief that we suggested the necesssity of submitting sewer miasm to examination; but from circumstances, quite beyond con- trol, this part of the inquiry could not be undertaken till the time had passed for finding in it the solution we desired. 3. Valuable information relative to local atmospheres has been gathered from other sources than direct chemical analysis. Ni^ie sanitary inspectors were employed to visit all the localities most severely affected with cholera ; and Dr. John Sutherland, late Superintending Inspector of the Board, has compiled from their statements an account, which is already before Parliament.* From Dr. Sutherland we learn that aU the inspectors agree in stating, as the result of their experience, that in those dkstricts where cholera had become localised they found it connected with obvious removable causes—these causes, so far as relates to the present subject, being such as affect the purity of the air, by loading it with the miasms of decomposing organic matter ; that in consider- able parts of the metropolis there are large masses of population dependent for their di-ainage on open ditches, tidal ditches, old badly-constructed sewers, and still worse liouse-drains,-the result of the whole being that \h^excreta ot a large part of the metropolis are not conveyed away, but are left to putrefy and rot in the open air, in cesspools ^enerni''''f''i ''^ underground sewers, always orTnfo gases, which are poured out into the streets exhltinnr^'''!^^ ^^^'^ ^P^^ districts the exhalations from the ditches keep the atmosphere in a con- VisirVaS^^^ Health to the Right Honourable cholera in the metropdis iuTsM^'pfesenf^^^^^^^^^ Sutherland on epidemic mand of Her Majesty. ' P'^^'^^®*^ 1'* Houses of Parliament by com-