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; and that 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 disease
which 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 (page 3) 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 hulk _Justitia_,
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 just mentioned; 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 hulk _Justitia_ was
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 getting water 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.
[Sidenote: 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.=
┌─────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬────────────┐
│ Water │ Sources of Supply. │ Aggregate of Districts │ Deaths in │
│ Companies. │ │ supplied chiefly by the │ 100,000 │
│ │ │ respective Companies. │inhabitants.│
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼────────────┬──────────────┼────────────┤
│ „ │ „ │ │ Deaths by │ │
│ │ │ │Cholera in 13 │ │
│ │ │ │ wks. ending │ │
│ │ │Population. │ Nov. 19. │ „ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼────────────┤
│(1) Lambeth │Thames, at Thames │ │ │ │
│ and (2) │ Ditton and at │ │ │ │
│ Southwark │ Battersea │ │ │ │
│ and │ │ │ │ │
│ Vauxhall │ │ 346,363│ 211│ 61│
│ │ │ │ │ │
│Southwark and│Thames, at Battersea │ │ │ │
│ Vauxhall │ │ 118,267│ 111│ 94│
│ │ │ │ │ │
│(1) Southwark│Thames, at Battersea;│ │ │ │
│ and │ the Ravensbourne, │ │ │ │
│ Vauxhall, │ in Kent, & ditches │ │ │ │
│ (2) Kent │ and wells │ 17,805│ 19│ 107│
└─────────────┴─────────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────┴────────────┘
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 table III, 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:—
[Sidenote: THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853.]
“_London Water Supply._—The following is an extract from 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.=
┌──────────────────────┬──────────┬──────┬───────┬───────────────────────────┐
│ │ │Deaths│ │ │
│ │ │ by │ │ │
│ │ │Chol. │Deaths │ │
│ │Population│in 17 │ by │ │
│ Districts. │ in 1853 │wks., │Cholera│ Water Supply. │
│ │ (estim.) │ Aug. │ to │ │
│ │ │21 to │100,000│ │
│ │ │ Dec. │living.│ │
│ │ │ 17, │ │ │
│ │ │1853. │ │ │
├──────────────────────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼───────────────────────────┤
│Bermondsey │ 48,128│ 73│ 150│Southwark & Vauxhall. │
│S. Saviour, Southwark │ 35,731│ 52│ 146│Southwark and Vauxhall, │
│ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │
│S. George, Southwark │ 51,824│ 74│ 143│Southwark and Vauxhall, │
│ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │
│St. Olave │ 19,375│ 26│ 134│Southwark & Vauxhall. │
│Rotherhithe │ 17,805│ 20│ 112│South. & Vaux., Kent. │
│Whitechapel │ 79,759│ 78│ 95│East London. │
│Newington │ 64,816│ 37│ 57│Southwark and Vauxhall, │
│ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │
│Kensington,—except │ 73,699│ 40│ 53│West Middlesex, Chelsea, │
│ Paddington │ │ │ │ Grand Junction. │
│Wandsworth │ 50,764│ 26│ 51│South. & Vaux., Pump-wells,│
│ │ │ │ │ River Wandle. │
│St. George (East) │ 48,376│ 21│ 43│East London. │
│Camberwell │ 54,667│ 22│ 40│Southwark and Vauxhall, │
│ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │
│Stepney │ 110,775│ 40│ 34│East London. │
│Lambeth │ 139,325│ 48│ 34│Lambeth, Sou. & Vaux. │
│Greenwich │ 99,365│ 32│ 31│Kent. │
│Marylebone │ 157,696│ 48│ 30│West Middlesex. │
│Westminster │ 65,609│ 19│ 27│Chelsea. │
│St. James, Westminster│ 36,406│ 9│ 25│Grand Junction, New River. │
│Hackney │ 58,429│ 13│ 22│New Riv., East London. │
│Paddington │ 46,305│ 10│ 22│Grand Junction. │
│Shoreditch │ 109,257│ 23│ 21│New Riv., East London. │
│Bethnal Green │ 90,193│ 18│ 20│East London. │
│Poplar │ 47,162│ 9│ 17│East London. │
│West London │ 28,840│ 4│ 14│New River. │
│Hanover Square and May│ 33,196│ 5│ 12│Grand Junction. │
│ Fair │ │ │ │ │
│Islington │ 95,329│ 12│ 12│New River. │
│Chelsea │ 56,538│ 6│ 11│Chelsea. │
│East London │ 44,406│ 4│ 9│New River. │
│London City │ 55,932│ 5│ 9│New River. │
│Clerkenwell │ 64,778│ 5│ 8│New River. │
│Belgrave │ 40,034│ 3│ 7│Chelsea. │
│St. │ 24,640│ 1│ 5│New River. │
│ Martin-in-the-Fields│ │ │ │ │
│St. Pancras │ 166,956│ 8│ 5│New River, Hampstead, West │
│ │ │ │ │ Middlesex. │
│St. Luke │ 54,055│ 2│ 4│New River. │
│Lewisham │ 34,835│ 1│ 3│Kent. │
│Holborn │ 46,571│ 1│ 2│New River. │
│St. Giles │ 54,214│ 1│ 2│New River. │
│Strand │ 44,460│ │ │New River. │
│Hampstead │ 11,986│ │ │Hampst., West Mid’sex. │
├──────────────────────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼───────────────────────────┤
│ │ 2,362,236│ 796│ │ │
└──────────────────────┴──────────┴──────┴───────┴───────────────────────────┘
[Sidenote: THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853, IN LONDON.]
It will be observed that Lambeth, which is supplied with water in a
great measure by the Lambeth Company, occupies a lower position in the
above table than it did in the previous table showing the mortality in
1849. Rotherhithe also has been removed from the first to the fifth
place; owing, no doubt, to the portion of the district supplied with
water from the Kent Water Works, instead of the ditches, being
altogether free from the disease, as was noticed above.
As the Registrar-General published a list of all the deaths from cholera
which occurred in London in 1853, from the commencement of the epidemic
in August to its conclusion in January 1854, I have been able to add up
the number which occurred in the various sub-districts on the south side
of the Thames, to which the water supply of the Southwark and Vauxhall,
and the Lambeth Companies, extends. I have presented them in the table
opposite, arranged in three groups.
=TABLE VI.=
┌───────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬───────────────┐
│ │ │ Deaths from │ Deaths by │ │
│Sub-Districts. │Population in │ Cholera in │ Cholera in │ Water Supply. │
│ │ 1851. │ 1853. │ each 100,000 │ │
│ │ │ │ living. │ │
├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤
│ │ │ │ │Southwark and │
│St. Saviour, │19,709 │45 │227 │ Vauxhall │
│ Southwark │ │ │ │ Water Company│
│ │ │ │ │ only. │
│St. Olave │8,015 │19 │237 │ „ │
│St. John, │11,360 │7 │61 │ „ │
│ Horsleydown │ │ │ │ │
│St. James, │18,899 │21 │111 │ „ │
│ Bermondsey │ │ │ │ │
│St. Mary │13,934 │27 │193 │ „ │
│ Magdalen │ │ │ │ │
│Leather Market │15,295 │23 │153 │ „ │
│Rotherhithe[15]│17,805 │20 │112 │ „ │
│Wandsworth │9,611 │3 │31 │ „ │
│Battersea │10,560 │11 │104 │ „ │
│Putney │5,280 │ │ │ „ │
│Camberwell │17,742 │9 │50 │ „ │
│Peckham │19,444 │7 │36 │ „ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │Lambeth Water │
│Christchurch, │ │ │ │ Company, and │
│ Southwk. │16,022 │7 │43 │ Southwark and│
│ │ │ │ │ Vauxhall │
│ │ │ │ │ Company │
│Kent Road │18,126 │37 │204 │ „ │
│Borough Road │15,862 │26 │163 │ „ │
│London Road │17,836 │9 │50 │ „ │
│Trinity, │20,922 │11 │52 │ „ │
│ Newington │ │ │ │ │
│St. Peter, │29,861 │23 │77 │ „ │
│ Walworth │ │ │ │ │
│St. Mary, │14,033 │5 │35 │ „ │
│ Newington │ │ │ │ │
│Waterloo (1st │14,088 │1 │7 │ „ │
│ part) │ │ │ │ │
│Waterloo (2nd │18,348 │7 │38 │ „ │
│ part) │ │ │ │ │
│Lambeth Church │18,409 │9 │48 │ „ │
│ (1st part) │ │ │ │ │
│Lambeth Church │26,784 │11 │41 │ „ │
│ (2nd part) │ │ │ │ │
│Kennington (1st│24,261 │12 │49 │ „ │
│ part) │ │ │ │ │
│Kennington (2nd│18,848 │6 │31 │ „ │
│ part) │ │ │ │ │
│Brixton │14,610 │2 │13 │ „ │
│Clapham │16,290 │10 │61 │ „ │
│St. George, │15,849 │6 │37 │ „ │
│ Camberwell │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│Norwood │3,977 │ │ │Lambeth Water │
│ │ │ │ │ Company only.│
│Streatham │9,023 │ │ │ „ │
│Dulwich │1,632 │ │ │ „ │
├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤
│First 12 │167,654 │192 │114 │Southwk. & │
│ sub-districts│ │ │ │ Vaux. │
├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤
│Next 16 │301,149 │182 │60 │Both Companies │
│ sub-districts│ │ │ │ │
├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤
│Last 3 │14,632 │ │ │Lambeth Comp. │
│ sub-districts│ │ │ │ │
└───────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴───────────────┘
Besides the general result shown in the table, there are some particular
facts well worthy of consideration. In 1849, when the water of the
Lambeth Company was quite as impure as that of the Southwark and
Vauxhall Company, the parish of Christchurch suffered a rather higher
rate of mortality from cholera than the adjoining parish of St. Saviour;
but in 1853, whilst the mortality in St. Saviour’s was at the rate of
two hundred and twenty-seven to one hundred thousand living, that of
Christchurch was only at the rate of forty-three. Now St. Saviour’s is
supplied with water entirely by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, and
Christchurch is chiefly supplied by the Lambeth Company. The pipes and
other property of the Lambeth Company, in the parish of Christchurch,
are rated at about £316, whilst the property of the Southwark and
Vauxhall Company in this parish is only rated at about £108. Waterloo
Road, 1st part, suffered almost as much as St. Saviour’s in 1849, and
had but a single death in 1853; it is supplied almost exclusively by the
Lambeth Company. The sub-districts of Kent Road and Borough Road, which
suffered severely from cholera, are supplied, through a great part of
their extent, exclusively by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company; the
supply of the Lambeth Company being intermingled with that of the other
only in a part of these districts, as may be seen by consulting the
accompanying map (No. 2). The rural districts of Wandsworth and Peckham
contain a number of pump-wells, and are only partially supplied by the
Water Company; on this account they suffered a lower mortality than the
other sub-districts supplied with the water from Battersea Fields. In
the three sub-districts to which this water does not extend, there was
no death from cholera in 1853.
[Illustration: MAP 2.]
[Sidenote: THE NEW WATER SUPPLY OF THE LAMBETH COMPANY.]
Although the facts shown in the above table afford very strong evidence
of the powerful influence which the drinking of water containing the
sewage of a town exerts over the spread of cholera, when that disease is
present, yet the question does not end here; for the intermixing of the
water supply of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company with that of the
Lambeth Company, over an extensive part of London, admitted of the
subject being sifted in such a way as to yield the most incontrovertible
proof on one side or the other. In the sub-districts enumerated in the
above table as being supplied by both Companies, the mixing of the
supply is of the most intimate kind. The pipes of each Company go down
all the streets, and into nearly all the courts and alleys. A few houses
are supplied by one Company and a few by the other, according to the
decision of the owner or occupier at that time when the Water Companies
were in active competition. In many cases a single house has a supply
different from that on either side. Each Company supplies both rich and
poor, both large houses and small; there is no difference either in the
condition or occupation of the persons receiving the water of the
different Companies. Now it must be evident that, if the diminution of
cholera, in the districts partly supplied with the improved water,
depended on this supply, the houses receiving it would be the houses
enjoying the whole benefit of the diminution of the malady, whilst the
houses supplied with the water from Battersea Fields would suffer the
same mortality as they would if the improved supply did not exist at
all. As there is no difference whatever, either in the houses or the
people receiving the supply of the two Water Companies, or in any of the
physical conditions with which they are surrounded, it is obvious that
no experiment could have been devised which would more thoroughly test
the effect of water supply on the progress of cholera than this, which
circumstances placed ready made before the observer.
The experiment, too, was on the grandest scale. No fewer than three
hundred thousand people of both sexes, of every age and occupation, and
of every rank and station, from gentlefolks down to the very poor, were
divided into two groups without their choice, and, in most cases,
without their knowledge; one group being supplied with water containing
the sewage of London, and, amongst it, whatever might have come from the
cholera patients, the other group having water quite free from such
impurity.
[Sidenote: EPIDEMIC OF 1854, IN THE SOUTH DISTRICTS OF LONDON.]
To turn this grand experiment to account, all that was required was to
learn the supply of water to each individual house where a fatal attack
of cholera might occur. I regret that, in the short days at the latter
part of last year, I could not spare the time to make the inquiry; and,
indeed, I was not fully aware, at that time, of the very intimate
mixture of the supply of the two Water Companies, and the consequently
important nature of the desired inquiry.
When the cholera returned to London in July of the present year,
however, I resolved to spare no exertion which might be necessary to
ascertain the exact effect of the water supply on the progress of the
epidemic, in the places where all the circumstances were so happily
adapted for the inquiry. I was desirous of making the investigation
myself, in order that I might have the most satisfactory proof of the
truth or fallacy of the doctrine which I had been advocating for five
years. I had no reason to doubt the correctness of the conclusions I had
drawn from the great number of facts already in my possession, but I
felt that the circumstance of the cholera poison passing down the sewers
into a great river, and being distributed through miles of pipes, and
yet producing its specific effects, was a fact of so startling a nature,
and of so vast importance to the community, that it could not be too
rigidly examined, or established on too firm a basis.
I accordingly asked permission at the General Register Office to be
supplied with the addresses of persons dying of cholera, in those
districts where the supply of the two Companies is intermingled in the
manner I have stated above. Some of these addresses were published in
the “Weekly Returns,” and I was kindly permitted to take a copy of
others. I commenced my inquiry about the middle of August with two
sub-districts of Lambeth, called Kennington, first part, and Kennington,
second part. There were forty-four deaths in these sub-districts down to
12th August, and I found that thirty-eight of the houses in which these
deaths occurred were supplied with water by the Southwark and Vauxhall
Company, four houses were supplied by the Lambeth Company, and two had
pump-wells on the premises and no supply from either of the Companies.
As soon as I had ascertained these particulars I communicated them to
Dr. Farr, who was much struck with the result, and at his suggestion the
Registrars of all the south districts of London were requested to make a
return of the water supply of the house in which the attack took place,
in all cases of death from cholera. This order was to take place after
the 26th August, and I resolved to carry my inquiry down to that date,
so that the facts might be ascertained for the whole course of the
epidemic. I pursued my inquiry over the various other sub-districts of
Lambeth, Southwark, and Newington, where the supply of the two Water
Companies is intermixed, with a result very similar to that already
given, as will be seen further on. In cases where persons had been
removed to a workhouse or any other place, after the attack of cholera
had commenced, I inquired the water supply of the house where the
individuals were living when the attack took place.