The medical and legal aspects of sanitary reform / by Alexander P. Stewart, M.D. and Edward Jenkins, Barrister-at-law.

  • Stewart, Alexander Patrick, 1813-1883.
Date:
1867
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical and legal aspects of sanitary reform / by Alexander P. Stewart, M.D. and Edward Jenkins, Barrister-at-law. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Rotherhithe ; in Horsleydown ; in Waterloo Road, Lambeth; and in Hope Street, Salford, as proving the influence of the use of impure water in predisposing to the disease. The subject was at length brought before Parliament, and a law enacted, as we have seen, in 1852, compelling the water companies to make arrangements for conveying the water from above Tedding- ton lock. Already in 1853 the death-rate from cholera in the dis- trict supplied by the Lambeth Company, which alone had completed its works and brought its supply from Thames Ditton, was little more than one-half the Southwark and Vauxhall death-rate. 'I'he house to house inquiry undertaken by Dr. Snow in the Lambeth, Vauxhall, and Southwark districts in the autumn of 1854,* brought to light the startling fact, that out of a total of 1,510 deaths, 1,224 occurred in houses supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall, and only 93 in those supplied by the Lambeth Company. In other words, while a death from cholera had occurred in one house in every 28 supplied by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, a fatal attack of cholera had occurred in only one out of 251 houses supplied by the Lambeth Company, showing a mortality just nine times as great in the houses supplied by the former company as in those supplied by the latter. And now it was found that the death-rate in the Chelsea district, which had previously presented so favourable a contrast to that of the southern districts, was very large when compared with the Lambeth rate. In short, it was very clear that the extraordinary diminution of the mortality in a district abounding in unwholesome influences, and hemmed in on every side by districts ravaojed by cholera, from which it had itself suflered frightfully in 1849, had ^ more than a casual connection with the pure water supplied by the Lambeth alone of all the water companies. Even more striking was the immunity enjoyed by single tenements supplied by this company, while all around the pestilence was busy and terribly fatal. The evidence collected in the same year (1854) by this indefatigable in- quirer as to the origin of the frightful outbreak in the Golden Square district in the month of September, was such as to compel the assent of the most incredulous to the proposition that it was mainly attribut- able to the contamination of the water of the Broad Street pump- well, the favourite source of supply in that neighbourhood. What was then matter of doubt, or wonder, or disgust to multitudes, now forms an almost unchallenged article in our sanitary creed, of which the Metropolis Water Act was one of the earliest expressions, as the yearly growing interest in the question of water supply for our great towns is its natural and gratifying result. But while thankfully acknowledging our obligations to Dr. Snow, who spent much time, and strength, and substance, in conducting this great inquiry, I cannot admit that cholera spreads only by being swallowed. That the gaseous emanations from unremoved cholera * Medical Times and Gazette, New Series, vol. ix., pp, 365-6,1854.