THE PUMP-WELL IN BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE.
There is no doubt that the mortality was much diminished, as I said before, by the flight of the population, which commenced soon after the outbreak; but the attacks had so far diminished before the use of the water was stopped, that it is impossible to decide whether the wellstill contained the cholera poison in an active state, or whether, from some cause, the water had become free from it. The pump-well has been opened, and I was informed by Mr. Farrell, the superintendent of the works, that there was no hole or crevice in the brickwork of the well, by which any impurity might enter; consequently in this respect the contamination of the water is not made out by the kind of physical evidence detailed in some of the instances previously related. I understand that the well is from twenty-eight to thirty feet in depth, and goes through the gravel to the surface of the clay beneath. The sewer, which passes within a few yards of the well, is twenty-two feet below the surface. The water at the time of the cholera contained impurities of an organic nature, in the form of minute whitish flocculi, visible on close inspection to the naked eye, as I before stated. Dr. Hassall, who was good enough to examine some of this water with the microscope, informed me that these particles had no organised structure, and that he thought they probably resulted from decomposition of other matter. He found a great number of very minute oval animalcules in the water, which are of no importance, except as an additional proof that the water contained organic matter on which they lived. The water also contained a large quantity of chlorides, indicating, no doubt, the impure sources from which the spring is supplied. Mr. Eley, the percussion-cap manufacturer of 37 Broad Street, informed me that he had long noticed that the water became offensive, both to the smell and taste, after it had been kept about two days. This, as I noticed before, is a character of water contaminated with sewage. Another person had noticed for months that a film formed on the surface of the water when it had been kept a few hours.
I inquired of many persons whether they had observedany change in the character of the water, about the time of the outbreak of cholera, and was answered in the negative. I afterwards, however, met with the following important information on this point. Mr. Gould, the eminent ornithologist, lives near the pump in Broad Street, and was in the habit of drinking the water. He was out of town at the commencement of the outbreak of cholera, but came home on Saturday morning, 2nd September, and sent for some of the water almost immediately, when he was much surprised to find that it had an offensive smell, although perfectly transparent and fresh from the pump. He did not drink any of it. Mr. Gould’s assistant, Mr. Prince, had his attention drawn to the water, and perceived its offensive smell. A servant of Mr. Gould who drank the pump-water daily, and drank a good deal of it on August 31st, was seized with cholera at an early hour on September 1st. She ultimately recovered.
Whether the impurities of the water were derived from the sewers, the drains, or the cesspools, of which latter there are a number in the neighbourhood, I cannot tell. I have been informed by an eminent engineer, that whilst a cesspool in a clay soil requires to be emptied every six or eight months, one sunk in the gravel will often go for twenty years without being emptied, owing to the soluble matters passing away into the land-springs by percolation. As there had been deaths from cholera just before the great outbreak not far from this pump-well, and in a situation elevated a few feet above it, the evacuations from the patients might of course be amongst the impurities finding their way into the water, and judging the matter by the light derived from other facts and considerations previously detailed, we must conclude that such was the case. A very important point in respect to this pump-well is that the water passed with almost everybody as beingperfectly pure, and it did in fact contain a less quantity of impurity than the water of some other pumps in the same parish, which had no share in the propagation of cholera. We must conclude from this outbreak that the quantity of morbid matter which is sufficient to produce cholera is inconceivably small, and that the shallow pump-wells in a town cannot be looked on with too much suspicion, whatever their local reputation may be.
PUMP-WELL, BROAD ST., GOLDEN SQ.
Whilst the presumed contamination of the water of the Broad Street pump with the evacuations of cholera patients, affords an exact explanation of the fearful outbreak of cholera in St. James’s parish, there is no other circumstance which offers any explanation at all, whatever hypothesis of the nature and cause of the malady be adopted. Many persons were inclined to attribute the severity of the malady in this locality to the very circumstance to which some people attribute the comparative immunity of the city of London from the same disease, viz., to the drains in the neighbourhood having been disturbed and put in order about half a year previously. Mr. Bazelgette, however, pointed out, in a report to the commissioners, that the streets in which the new sewers had been made suffered less than the others; and a reference to the map will show that this is correct, for I recollect that the streets in which the sewers were repaired about February last, were Brewer Street, Little Pulteney Street, and Dean Street, Soho. Many of the non-medical public were disposed to attribute the outbreak of cholera to the supposed existence of a pit in which persons dying of the plague had been buried about two centuries ago; and, if the alleged plague-pit had been nearer to Broad Street, they would no doubt still cling to the idea. The situation of the supposed pit is, however, said to be Little Marlborough Street, just out of the area in which the chief mortalityoccurred. With regard to effluvia from the sewers passing into the streets and houses, that is a fault common to most parts of London and other towns. There is nothing peculiar in the sewers or drainage of the limited spot in which this outbreak occurred; and Saffron Hill and other localities, which suffer much more from ill odours, have been very lightly visited by cholera.
IRRUPTION OF CHOLERA AT DEPTFORD.
Just at the time when the great outbreak of cholera occurred in the neighbourhood of Broad Street, Golden Square, there was an equally violent irruption in Deptford, but of a more limited extent. About ninety deaths took place in a few days, amongst two or three score of small houses, in the north end of New Street and an adjoining row called French’s Fields. Deptford is supplied with very good water from the river Ravensbourne by the Kent Water Works, and until this outbreak there was but little cholera in the town, except amongst some poor people, who had no water except what they got by pailsful from Deptford Creek—an inlet of the Thames. There had, however, been a few cases in and near New Street, just before the great outbreak. On going to the spot on September 12th and making inquiry, I found that the houses in which the deaths had occurred were supplied by the Kent Water Works, and the inhabitants never used any other water. The people informed me, however, that for some few weeks the water had been extremely offensive when first turned on; they said it smelt like a cesspool, and frothed like soap suds. They were in the habit of throwing away a few pailsful of that which first came in, and collecting some for use after it became clear. On inquiring in the surrounding streets, to which this outbreak of cholera did not extend, viz., Wellington Street, Old King Street, and Hughes’s Fields, I found that there had been no alteration in the water. I concluded,therefore, that a leakage had taken place into the pipes supplying the places where the outbreak occurred, during the intervals when the water was not turned on. Gas is known to get into the water-pipes occasionally in this manner, when they are partially empty, and to impart its taste to the water. There are no sewers in New Street or French’s Fields, and the refuse of all kinds consequently saturates the ground in which the pipes are laid. I found that the water collected by the people, after throwing away the first portion, still contained more organic matter than that supplied to the adjoining streets. On adding nitrate of silver and exposing the specimens to the light, a deeper tint of brown was developed in the former than in the latter.
All the instances of communication of cholera through the medium of water, above related, have resulted from the contamination of a pump-well, or some other limited supply of water; and the outbreaks of cholera connected with the contamination, though sudden and intense, have been limited also; but when the water of a river becomes infected with the cholera evacuations emptied from on board ship, or passing down drains and sewers, the communication of the disease, though generally less sudden and violent, is much more widely extended; more especially when the river water is distributed by the steam engine and pipes connected with waterworks. Cholera may linger in the courts and alleys crowded with the poor, for reasons previously pointed out, but I know of no instance in which it has been generally spread through a town or neighbourhood, amongst all classes of the community, in which the drinking water has not been the medium of its diffusion. Each epidemic of cholera in London has borne a strict relation to the nature of thewater supply of its different districts, being modified only by poverty, and the crowding and want of cleanliness which always attend it.
THE EPIDEMIC OF 1832.
The following table shows the number of deaths from cholera in the various districts of London in 1832, together with the nature of the water supply at that period. (See next page.)[11]
This table shows that in the greater part of Southwark, which was supplied with worse water than any other part of the metropolis, the mortality from cholera was also much higher than anywhere else. The other south districts, supplied with water obtained at points higher up the Thames, and containing consequently less impurity, were less affected. On the north of the Thames, the east districts, supplied, in 1832, with water from the river Lea, at Old Ford, where it contained the sewage of a large population, suffered more than other parts on the north side of London. Whitechapel suffered more than the other east districts; probably not more from the poverty and crowded state of the population, than from the great number of mariners, coalheavers, and others, living there, who were employed on the Thames, and got their water, whilst at work, direct from the river. There were one hundred and thirty-nine deaths from cholera amongst persons afloat on the Thames. The cholera passed very lightly over most of the districts supplied by the New River Company. St. Giles’ was an exception, owing to the overcrowding of the common lodging-houses in the part of the parish called the Rookery. The City of London also suffered severely in 1832. Now when the engine at Broken Wharf was employed to draw water from the Thames, this water was supplied more particularly to the City, and not at all to the higher districts supplied by the New River Company. This would offer an explanation of the high mortality from cholera in the City at that time, supposing the engine were actually used during 1832; but I have not yet been able to ascertain that circumstance with certainty. I know, however, that it was still used occasionally some years later.
TABLE II.
TABLE II.
TABLE II.
THE EPIDEMIC OF 1849.
Westminster suffered more in 1832 than St. George, Hanover Square, and Kensington, which at that time had the same water. This arose from the poor and crowded state of part of its population. The number of cases of cholera communicated by the water would be the same in one district as in the other; but in one district the disease would spread also from person to person more than in the others.
Between 1832 and 1849 many changes took place in the water supply of London. The Southwark Water Company united with the South London Water Company, to form a new Company under the name of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company. The water works at London Bridge were abolished, and the united company derived their supply from the Thames at Battersea Fields, about half a mile above Vauxhall Bridge. The Lambeth Water Company continued to obtain their supply opposite to Hungerford Market; but they had established a small reservoir at Brixton.
But whilst these changes had been made by the water companies, changes still greater had taken place in the river, partly from the increase of population, but much more from the abolition of cesspools and the almost universal adoption of waterclosets in their stead. The Thames in 1849 was more impure at Battersea Fields than it had been in 1832 at London Bridge. A clause which prevented the South London Water Company from laying their pipes within two miles of the Lambeth Water Works was repealed in 1834, and the two Companies were inactive competition for many years, the result of which is, that the pipes of the Lambeth Water Company and those of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company pass together down all the streets of several of the south districts. As the water of both these Companies was nearly equal in its impurity in 1849, this circumstance was of but little consequence at that time; but it will be shown further on that it afterwards led to very important results.
On the north side of the Thames the Water Companies and their districts remained the same, but some alterations were made in the sources of supply. The East London Water Company ceased to obtain water at Old Ford, and got it from the river Lea, above Lea Bridge, out of the influence of the tide and free from sewage, except that from some part of Upper Clapton. The Grand Junction Company removed their works from Chelsea to Brentford, where they formed large settling reservoirs. The New River Company entirely ceased to employ the steam engine for obtaining water from the Thames. The supply of the other Water Companies remained the same as in 1832.
The accompanying table (No. 3), shows the mortality from cholera in the various registration districts of London in 1849, together with the water supply. The annual value of house and shop-room for each person is also shown, as a criterion, to a great extent, of the state of overcrowding or the reverse. The deaths from cholera and the value of house room, are taken from the “Report on the Cholera of 1849,” by Dr. Farr, of the General Register Office. The water supply is indicated merely by the name of the Companies. After the explanation given above of the source of supply, this will be sufficient. It is only necessary to add, that the Kent Water Company derive their supply from the river Ravensbourne, and the Hampstead Company from springs and reservoirs at Hampstead.
TABLE III,Showing the mortality from Cholera, and the Water Supply, in the Districts of London, in 1849. The Districts are arranged in the order of their Mortality from Cholera.
TABLE III,Showing the mortality from Cholera, and the Water Supply, in the Districts of London, in 1849. The Districts are arranged in the order of their Mortality from Cholera.
TABLE III,
Showing the mortality from Cholera, and the Water Supply, in the Districts of London, in 1849. The Districts are arranged in the order of their Mortality from Cholera.
A glance at the table shows that in every district to which the supply of the Southwark and Vauxhall, or the Lambeth Water Company extends, the cholera was more fatal than in any other district whatever. The only other water company deriving a supply from the Thames, in a situation where it is much contaminated with the contents of the sewers, was the Chelsea Company. But this company, which supplies some of the most fashionable parts of London, took great pains to filter the water before its distribution, and in so doing no doubt separated, amongst other matters, the greater portion of that which causes cholera. On the other hand, although the Southwark and Vauxhall and the Lambeth Water Companies professed to filter the water, they supplied it in a most impure condition. Even in the following year, when Dr. Hassall made an examination of it, he found in it the hairs of animals and numerous substances which had passed through the alimentary canal. Speaking of the water supply of London generally, Dr. Hassall says:—
“It will be observed, that the water of the companies on the Surrey side of London, viz., the Southwark, Vauxhall, and Lambeth, is by far the worst of all those who take their supply from the Thames.”[13]
In the north districts of London, which suffered much less from cholera than the south districts, the mortality was chiefly influenced by the poverty and crowding of the population. The New River Company having entirely left off the use of their engine in the city, their water, being entirely free from sewage, could have had no share in the propagation of cholera. It is probable also, that the water of the East London Company, obtained above Lea Bridge, had no share in propagating the malady; andthat this is true also of the West Middlesex Company, obtaining their supply from the Thames at Hammersmith; and of the Grand Junction Company, obtaining their supply at Brentford. All these Water Companies have large settling reservoirs. It is probable also, as I stated above, that the Chelsea Company in 1849, by careful filtration and by detaining the water in their reservoirs, rendered it in a great degree innocuous.
Some parts of London suffered by the contamination of the pump-wells in 1849, and the cholera in the districts near the river was increased by the practice, amongst those who are occupied on the Thames, of obtaining water to drink by dipping a pail into it. It will be shown further on, that persons occupied on the river suffered more from cholera than others. Dr. Baly makes the following inquiry in his Report to the College of Physicians.[14]
“How did it happen, if the character of the water has a great influence on the mortality from cholera, that in the Belgrave district only 28 persons in 10,000 died, and in the Westminster district, also supplied by the Chelsea Company, 68 persons in 10,000; and, again, that in the Wandsworth district the mortality was only 100, and in the district of St. Olave 181 in 10,000 inhabitants—both these districts receiving their supply from the Southwark Company?”
The water of the Chelsea Company has been alluded to above, but whether this water had any share in the propagation of cholera or not, it is perfectly in accordance with the mode of communication of the diseasewhich I am advocating, that it should spread more in the crowded habitations of the poor, in Westminster, than in the commodious houses of the Belgrave district. In examining the effect of polluted water as a medium of the cholera poison, it is necessary to bear constantly in mind the more direct way in which the poison is also swallowed, as I explained in the commencement of this work. As regards St. Olave’s and Wandsworth, Dr. Baly was apparently not aware that, whilst almost every house in the first of these districts is supplied by the water company, and has no other supply, the pipes of the company extend to only a part of the Wandsworth district, a large part of it having only pump-wells.
The epidemic of 1849 was a continuance or revival of that which commenced in the autumn of 1848, and there are some circumstances connected with the first cases which are very remarkable, and well worthy of notice. It has been already stated (page3) that the first case of decided Asiatic cholera in London, in the autumn of 1848, was that of a seaman from Hamburgh, and that the next case occurred in the very room in which the first patient died. These cases occurred in Horsleydown, close to the Thames. In the evening of the day on which the second case occurred in Horsleydown, a man was taken ill in Lower Fore Street, Lambeth, and died on the following morning. At the same time that this case occurred in Lambeth, the first of a series of cases occurred in White Hart Court, Duke Street, Chelsea, near the river. A day or two afterwards, there was a case at 3, Harp Court, Fleet Street. The next case occurred on October 2nd, on board the hulkJustitia, lying off Woolwich; and the next to this in Lower Fore Street, Lambeth, three doors from where a previous case had occurred. The first thirteen cases were all situated in the localities justmentioned; and on October 5th there were two cases in Spitalfields.
Now, the people in Lower Fore Street, Lambeth, obtained their water by dipping a pail into the Thames, there being no other supply in the street. In White Hart Court, Chelsea, the inhabitants obtained water for all purposes in a similar way. A well was afterwards sunk in the court; but at the time these cases occurred the people had no other means of obtaining water, as I ascertained by inquiry on the spot. The inhabitants of Harp Court, Fleet Street, were in the habit, at that time, of procuring water from St. Bride’s pump, which was afterwards closed on the representation of Mr. Hutchinson, surgeon, of Farringdon Street, in consequence of its having been found that the well had a communication with the Fleet Ditch sewer, up which the tide flows from the Thames. I was informed by Mr. Dabbs, that the hulkJustitiawas supplied with spring water from the Woolwich Arsenal; but it is not improbable that water was occasionally taken from the Thames alongside, as was constantly the practice in some of the other hulks, and amongst the shipping generally.
When the epidemic revived again in the summer of 1849, the first case in the sub-district “Lambeth; Church, 1st part,” was in Lower Fore Street, on June 27th; and on the commencement of the epidemic of the present year, the first case of cholera in any part of Lambeth, and one of the earliest in London, occurred at 52, Upper Fore Street, where also the people had no water except what they obtained from the Thames with a pail, as I ascertained by calling at the house. Many of the earlier cases this year occurred in persons employed amongst the shipping in the river, and the earliest cases in Wandsworth and Battersea have generally been amongst persons gettingwater direct from the Thames, or from streams up which the Thames flows with the tide. It is quite in accordance with what might be expected from the propagation of cholera through the medium of the Thames water, that it should generally affect those who draw it directly from the river somewhat sooner than those who receive it by the more circuitous route of the pipes of a water company.
THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853, IN LONDON.
London was without cholera from the latter part of 1849 to August 1853. During this interval an important change had taken place in the water supply of several of the south districts of London. The Lambeth Company removed their water works, in 1852, from opposite Hungerford Market to Thames Ditton; thus obtaining a supply of water quite free from the sewage of London. The districts supplied by the Lambeth Company are, however, also supplied, to a certain extent, by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, the pipes of both companies going down every street, in the places where the supply is mixed, as was previously stated. In consequence of this intermixing of the water supply, the effect of the alteration made by the Lambeth Company on the progress of cholera was not so evident, to a cursory observer, as it would otherwise have been. It attracted the attention, however, of the Registrar-General, who published a table in the “Weekly Return of Births and Deaths” for 26th November 1853, of which the following is an abstract, containing as much as applies to the south districts of London.
TABLE IV.
TABLE IV.
TABLE IV.
It thus appears that the districts partially supplied with the improved water suffered much less than the others, although, in 1849, when the Lambeth Company obtained their supply opposite Hungerford Market, these same districts suffered quite as much as those supplied entirely by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, as was shown in tableIII, p.62. The Lambeth water extends to only a small portion of some of the districts necessarily included in the group supplied by both Companies; and when the division is made a little more in detail, by taking sub-districts instead of districts, the effect of the new water supply is shown to be greater than appears in the above table. The Kent Water Company was introduced into the table by the Registrar-General on account of its supplying a small part of Rotherhithe. The following interesting remarks appeared, respecting this portion of Rotherhithe, in the “Weekly Return” of December 10, 1853:—
THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853.
“London Water Supply.—The following is an extractfrom a letter which the Registrar-General has received from Mr. Pitt, the Registrar of Rotherhithe:—
“‘I consider Mr. Morris’s description of the part of the parish through which the pipes of the Kent Water Company were laid in 1849, is in the main correct; for though the Company had entered the parish, the water was but partially taken by the inhabitants up to the time of the fearful visitation in the above year.
“‘With respect to the deaths in 1849, they were certainly more numerous in the district now generally supplied by the Kent Company than in any other part of the parish. I only need mention Charlotte Row, Ram Alley, and Silver Street,—places where the scourge fell with tremendous severity.
“‘Among the recent cases of cholera, not one has occurred in the district supplied by the Kent Water Company.
“‘The parish of Rotherhithe has been badly supplied with water for many ages past. The people drank from old wells, old pumps, open ditches, and the muddy stream of the Thames.’
“In 1848–9 the mortality from cholera in Rotherhithe was higher than it was in any other district of London. This is quite in conformity with the general rule, that when cholera prevails, it is most fatal where the waters are most impure.”
The following table (which, with a little alteration in the arrangement, is taken from the “Weekly Return of Births and Deaths” for 31st December 1853) shows the mortality from cholera, in the epidemic of 1853, down to a period when the disease had almost disappeared.
The districts are arranged in the order of their mortality from Cholera.
TABLE V.
TABLE V.
TABLE V.