The use of pure water.

Date:
[1853?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The use of pure water. 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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    THE USE OE PURE WATER. Two centuries ago, London was a very large city, although nothing like so large as it is at present. Four hundred and fifty thousand people were then living in it, in tall houses, which were packed very closely together, so that they formed narrow streets. But no pains were taken at this time to carry away the dirt and waste matter, that necessarily gathered where there was so vast a crowd of living beings. Some little of it was washed down into the river Thames, when it rained; but by far the greater part of it collected in heaps, and lay in all sorts of holes and corners, decaying and putrefying, and filling the air all round with poison-vapours, which no one could see, but which every one was forced to take into his mouth when he opened it. London was then one of the most crowded and dirty, as well as one of the largest cities in the world. In the year 1665,—that is, nearly two hundred years ago,—a dreadful disease broke out all at once in this crowded and dirty city. People who caught this disease sometimes died in a moment, as if they had been killed by a blow; and hence it was caUed