The cholera in Berwick Street / by The Senior Curate of St. Luke's.

  • Whitehead, Henry, 1825-1896.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cholera in Berwick Street / by The Senior Curate of St. Luke's. 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.

    9/26
    vetl of the sad incidents of the night, came in the form of a mmons to the death-bed of one with whom he had cheerfully : iversed at a late hour on the preceding evening. A patient, title widow, she was an object of special interest to all who knew ; rr. Many a pitying glance was cast that morning upon her little : ildren, as they moved about scarce conscious of what was hap- i ning. What was to become of them ? What has become of im? They have found an asylum, but it is in their mother’s ■ ive. A fearful tragedy was enacting in that one small house, ; iien eight of its twenty inmates died in quick succession before j i night of the 4th of September. And one there was, who will be f nnembered by the survivors as one of God’s own heroines, a truly ; iristian woman, who watched day and night at the bedsides of iii‘5 dying, and by her calm and quiet demeanour sustained the ! irits of the living, till she herself fell the eighth victim to the , lease. The writer will not soon forget how, on the 5th or 6th lining of the month, he found the remnant gathered together j one room, in a state of anxiety and suspense concerning one | their number who complained of feeling sick and ill, and how 11 iir countenances lighted up with a gleam of satisfaction when t confidently assured them that the disease was subsiding, and virulence abated, and that sickness was no longer the certain J eerunner of death. lElsewhere scenes as melancholy presented themselves in startling 1 lundance. The tale that has just been told of one house is but :| i 'en as a description of what was passing in many. In the very | >xt that the writer entered, there lay at the point of death Iiur persons, who the evening before had retired to rest in I; alth and strength. - But as it is his desire to state facts which may be not only jteresting but useful, he will at once put on paper some sta- litics taken from a list in his possession which contains the i me and residence of each deceased person. Population of St. Luke’s, under 9,000; * deaths by cholera since :ptember 1st, 373, nearly all of which took place in the first rrtnight, and 189, at least, in the first four days. Biioad Street.—Number of houses, exclusive of the brewery, 1 >; population, 869 ; deaths from cholera during the recent out- irst, 84; j~ deaths in, or from, every house but one on its south 'lie. Eleven houses on the north side escaped, among which 13re the six corner houses, which will be recognised by a refer- * Ita population, in 1851, was 9,227 ; since which time a block of houses has 1 en pulled down that contained considerably more inhabitants than the odd 227. + In addition to these 84, no less than 30 workmen and other non-residents 1 ught their deaths from this street.