Report on the cholera epidemic of 1866 in England : supplement to the twenty-ninth annual report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths, and marriages in England / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command.

  • Great Britain. General Register Office.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the cholera epidemic of 1866 in England : supplement to the twenty-ninth annual report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths, and marriages in England / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    222/436 (page 114)
    Week ending Saturday, August 4. The deaths registered in London during the week were 2661. It was the thirty-first week of the year ; and the average number of deaths for that week is, with a correction for increase of population, 1395. The deaths in the present return exceed the estimated number by 1266. There is a slight increase in the high rate of mortality that ruled in the previous week. 1053 persons died of cholera, 354 of diarrhoea, making 1407 deaths from both forms of disease. The deaths returned in the four last weeks from cholera were 32, 346, 904, and 1053 ; from diarrhoea 150, 221, 347, 354. The deaths from cholera exceed by 149 the deaths in the previous week ; the excess in the total deaths is only 61. Of cholera and diarrhoea 573 children under 5 years of age, 114 boys and girls of the age of 5-10; 79 of the age 10-20; 255 men and women of the age 20-40; 248 of the age 40-60 ; 127 of the age 60-80 ; and 11 old people of 80 and upwards. Deaths from diarrhoea or cholera in small numbers occurred all over the London districts ; in Kensington, Marylebone, Pancras, Islington, Holborn, the numbers were considerable. In the West districts of London 12 pei'sons died of cholera ; in the North districts 46 (including 19 in Islington, 20 in Hackney) ; in the Central districts 31, including 12 in St. Botolph ; in the South districts 47, including 21 in Deptford and Greenwich ; while in the East districts 916 persons died of unequi- vocal cholera. Only 16 of the deaths from cholera occurred in one of the largest of the East districts, Shoreditch. The violence of the attack is still expended on Bethnal-green, Whitechapel, St. George-in-the-East, Stepney, Mile-end Old Town, and Poplar, including Bow. There is some subsidence in Poplar and Stepney, but increased virulence in Bethnal-green and Whitechapel. The attack has been circumscribed by nearly the same lines for three weeks in succession. This is no accident; the phenomena are due to some specific cause. These violent outbreaks are almost invariably in England the result of con- tamination of the waters ; and the question is subsequently noticed. Upon the assumption that the waters were at some time impure, there is this further aggrava- tion that in the lower districts the water is not carried away. “It is unfortunately,” says Mr. Bazalgette, “ the locality where our main drainage works are not complete.” A temporary pumping station is to be erected forthwith, and will be in operation in about three weeks at Abbey Mills. The East London waters have been analyzed by Professor Frankland, whose report is reassuring; and Mr. Greaves, the engineer, is fully alive to the extreme importance of pure water at the present moment. The waters of shallow wells and pumps are polluted ; and in this crisis the health of London is very much in the hands of our hydraulic engineers. The local authorities, who had not instituted generally house-to-house visitation, are now on the alert. The sympathy of the whole nation with the sufferers has been touchingly expressed by Her Majesty, and has been proclaimed by the Prime Minister. Under these auspices, and with the intelligent exertions of the people themselves, we may hope ere long to see the destructive progress of the plague stayed. The Water Supply of the East Districts.—The cause of the ej)idemic of cholera consists, as is well known now, of a zymotic matter in various degrees of activity all over the London area ; affecting the people in various ways, through air, contact, and water. Hitherto, in all great outbreaks here, the cholrine, which this stuff may be called, has been distributed chiefly through water, as was shown in the Registrar General’s reports on the previous epidemics. When it was observed, therefore, that the present fatal explosion of cholera fell on the East districts in the first week, suspicion was aroused ; and that was strengthened by the observations of the week ending July 28th, and by personal inspection, which showmd that the attacks were diffused over a wide area, among many people in bad hygienic conditions, and also among many in ordinary conditions,