Cholera and the water supply in the south districts of London in 1854 / by John Snow.

  • Snow, John, 1813-1858.
Date:
[1856]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cholera and the water supply in the south districts of London in 1854 / by John Snow. 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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    and 180 to each 100,000 supplied by the Lambeth Company ; consequently, at this period of the epidemic, the mortality was still more than five times as great amongst the popula- tion supplied by the former company as amongst that sup- plied by the latter. The results of my inquiry into the supply of water were, of course, obtained separately for each district and subdistrict in which the inquiry was made, and were so published; but I was unable at the time to show the relation between the supply of houses in which fatal attacks took place, and the entire supply of each district and subdistrict, on account of the latter circumstance not being known. I expressed my- self as follows in an article which I published soon after my inquiry was made: I hope shortly to learn the number of houses in each subdistrict supplied by each of the water companies respectively, when the effect of the impure water in propagating cholera will be shown in a very striking manner, and with great detail.* This information did not, however, come within my reach till recently, and not even then with all the accuracy I could desire. In the Report on the Cholera Epidemics of London as affected by the Con- sumption of Impure Water, lately written by Mr. Simon, and published by the General Board of Health, there is a statement of the number of houses supplied by each of the water companies respectively in each district and subdistrict. The line has not been very accurately drawn where a street, as often happens, is partly in one district and partly in ano- ther ; and thus, in the recent Report, the subdistricts of St. Saviour's, Southvvark, Leather Market, Bermondsey, Batter- sea, and Peckham, have been represented to contain a few houses supplied by the Lambeth Company, although they do not contain any. With regard to Bermondsey, it is stated m a foot note that some ends of streets may have been in- cluded which have passed the registration boundary, and this has happened in other cases; but the errors arising from this cause are limited in amount, and cannot much affect the statistical calculations that I have made. There is also a further imperfection in the account of the water supply of the subdistricts. The numbers which are stated to repre- sent the houses supplied by each water company in each subdistrict are found on adding up the tables not to do so, but to represent the number oi houses, minus those situated in streets in which no death occurred; the latter being ♦ Medical Tiraes find Gazette, Oct. 7, 1854, p. 000.