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Mam* 10,1855.] » • THE LE1DEB. 2S5 ¦ - ¦...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Science Of Health. The Mode Of Commu...
ha * rf <» es « a ! te £ tbe g * w * desideratum —» nm » rtahtyT Hence Ifee pro-found truth of the line , " All men think all men mortal but thenasetnwi If wi w » ted an example of human perrerseness and fatal infatuation ? , a bJteron & covld scarcely be fou-nd than in the way we have been going on heaping * up- corruption in our most crowded streets * under ourwmdows , even trader * the very healths of our eomfortebleJookuw firesides . I # ire only * fouow e * our natural instincts we should avoid many of these aboratna < a * ras ; bu « what with being- taught to , believe a certain amount of dirt and * suffering ; inseparable from an orthodox existence , and what wita tne notfow that fiavins escaped hitherto wte shall escape altogether , people go on , nlC « , t , - disease , sowfn ? the seeds of pestilence , after the most desperate
and deadly methods Factories and workrooms are still crowded and overheated with steam and the noxious fumes of gas and human exhalation * —thousands of people still live in eeUars and mines—thousands dnnk water springing from sources the most foul and destructive—real poison fountains , and millions prefer to consume themselves before the slovr fire of <* m- and tobacco . The Director of the Public . Health has by no means-< rot ifc all his own way ; the corporations fight most doggedly for tfaeir cesspools and ditch water , and" the more effort made to improve the health of the million , the more we observe a want oF sympathy . The public individually Has the merit of subscribing- to the splendid incomes of our great physicians , collectively it does not understand being taxed to preserve its salubrity . It has taken two sweeping attacks of cholera to make us feel that there was such a consideration as public health . legislation foils , but pestilencelike its fellow demon warproves the very best of purifiers .
, , The state of things revealed by Dr . ShwwV researches is so incredibly filthy , so instinctively and ? inherently fatal , that a * first sight one refuses to think it possible that those who build dwelling-houses could be so ignorant , and the inhabitant * so reckless . IBs theory is , and the facts he brings forward in support of it seem to us most important , that cholera is propagated by actually swallowing the diseased particles thrown off by the unfortmiate- victims ; that the water we are supplied with in our cities is the grand medium by which the dreadful impregnation is earned on . _ Mis researches ' show bow in a row of houses , one case having occurred ,, the inhabitants-of the adjoining Bouses have'been attacked , each house beingjmpplied with water from the same source , and the reservoirs of all being actually the-receptacles- of the- drainage from overflowing cesspools . in which washerwoman ot tnis
Hfe-mentions- one instance a , living r » a row kind 5 , having discovered that the water was not pure enough for her business , used to send some distance to get good water ; and as she darank thisy she w * s the only person who escaped . The- investigations-Dr . Snow made into the causes of the terrible onslaught in the Golden-square district , prove wHhout a doubt that the water of the pump in Broad-street was the source of tne pestilence ; A map of-death shows-where the centre of the attack was , and here stands the fatal pump . Pn this map a black mark stand * fi > r eacfc death in- every- house , and immediately around this pump we can count a crowd of sixty coffm symbols . Two remarkable cases are also p lated — one-that of a gentleman , who came from a distance and dined m Wardoujstreefc and drinking ^ tftis poisonous water , died ; the other , of a lady living at Islington with her niece , who actually sent for supplies , of thrs ^ water , foncying it was better than any in the neighbourhood : they both fell victrms ' to the disease ; . _ ... _ ....., „ . -r , _ that ithe St
DV Show ' s argument is strengthened by the fact » . James ' s Worfchouse , situated in the- nnmediate neighbourhood of the pump , and surrounded by houses in which persons died constantly of the disease , there were only 5 who died out of 535 inmates . Now the workhouse was supplied by the Grand-Junction water and a pump-well of its own , and the fnmates were not allowed to send anywhere else for water . A coffee-house keeper wno > dealt in tJJs- water counted nine of her customers who had died . And vet flu ' s pump positively rejoicedii * the reputation-of remarkable purity : fortunately it was fijund out at last , and through Dr . Snow s appeal to tne- parish authorities this terribte engine was deprived of its handle , very much to the disgust of the small dealers in effervescing drinks and sherbet , whtr . reBed upon it for their popular luxuries . Within a circle of 25 <* yai-ds of this precious pump upwards of 50 O deaths occurred in ten . days , a mortality equal to that of the plague ¦; and had not the inhabitants fled , the destruction woulihave been greater ; for in tes * tbar * a > week the streets were desertedi .
. . _ . ~ Dr Snow traces the outbreak of cholera iw the Black Sea fleet to the use of water impregnated with the seeds of disease ; he quotes a letter from a medtcal officer ; who says he saw the soldiers who were marching from a foctrs-of" cholera washing themselves in a stream from which most or the ' English and French ships obtained their water . This was on tho = 7 th and 8 th of August , on the 9 th and 10 th the disease suddenly burst out with the greatest virulence amongst the crews . The Montebello and Ville de Paris had upwards of 20 O men attacked in one night , 40 lay dead in the morning . The Britannia lost 50-men in twenty hours ? time , and soon 30 more , while 200 were suffering from tfte disease ; the snip was , m fact , completely disabled , and had no crew left to sail her . The same otfacer relates that ffOQO men of the French army perished in a . few day sat Balteclnk , and the calamity was attributed to the poisoning of the > wells by throwing in putrid carcases . The following example of the reckless way in wind * people will drink bad water we find in Dr . Haasnll ' s book u » evidence from a flumt-on- renortinff cholera to Jacob ' s Island , Bermondaey : — " I » the greater
number of ftouaes there was no water to-drink but that from the tidaL ditches until about * July , the water in the ditches becoming in some parte absolutely tratrid ' , green , thick , and alimy ; I know aotne clusters of houses whenr they ha < I only auch water to drink , and I know that out of nvo of these nausea the inmates of four were affected with cholera . " Impressed wrth all these facts bearing upon the same point , Dr . Snow ^ afttr referring- to the RegiBtrar-GenwaPs report of the deaths , obtained the names and addressee or * those who died of cholera last summer and Autumn : in certain districts supplied with water by two- companies ; the one giving- water obtained at Thames Ditton , the other wAter from tne Ahamos at Brtteeraea . The result snows that in the four wceka from the 8 th of July to the 5 th of Awnxat there were 334 death * Of these , 280 wore in houses
supplied with ; water from Battersea by the Sontbiwirk : smak Vauxhall Company ; in 14 cases with ? water from Thames itittow fiy- tie' Lanabeth Com < 5 any ; in 2 Q cases the water used was taken by dipping as pail into thx 'hames ; in 4 houses it was selected from : su . ditch ; in Mothers from i pump-well ; the remaining 4 could not be- ascertained ^ The other water company , deriving its supply from tfie- Thames ( thf Chelsea ) , took the very obvious precaution of filtering it , and ; consequently its victims were . more rare .- Dr . Snow ' s book contains a map , co » - loured to show the dretriets- supplied " , with the contaminated , water , and anj one who is acquainted with the locality of the ravages of cholera must at once pronounce ' this map a cholera map . He says , in reference- to the results we have above stated : **' It is obvious that no experiment could hanrebeen devised which would more thoroughly test the effect of water supply on the progress
of cholera than this , whieh , circumstances placed ready-made before the ob * - server . The experiments , tooy were on the grandest scale . No fewer thaa gOO iOOO people of both sexes , of every age and occupation , and of evei-y rank and station , from gentlefolks down to the very poor man , were divided into two groups , without their choice , and in most cases without their knowledge—one group being supplied with watev containing the sewage of London , and amongst it whatever might have come from the cholera patients ; the othergroup having water quite free from such impurity . . . . I resolved to spare no exertions which might be necessary to ascertain : the exact effect of the water on the . progress of the epidemic iiv the places where all the circumstances were so happily adapted for the inquiry- I had
na reason to doubt the correctness of the conclusion 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 , aitd 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 , nor established on too firm a basis . " The . main result ' -we have stated , but there remains another ^ taken from the authentic returns , viz ., that of the 563 deaths from cholera in the whole metropolis , in the four weeks euding ; August 5 , more than half were customers of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company , and , the rest were mariners and . persons employed about the shipping , who derive their water
from , the nver . . Analysis of those two waters showed that the purer one contained oiuj ? 0-95 grains ? of chloride of sodium ( common salt ) , while the other had 37 * 9 grains of chloride of sodium in the gallon . Turning to Dr . HassalTs book , we ; see in his admirable drawings what horrible monsters the microscope drags to b ' ght from those much vaunted crystal streams of the opulent com .. panfes _ Your glass of pure water appears a perfect pandemonium of fearfulforms , all of them apparently warriors , armed at all points with every kinC of weapon of offence and defence , most of them clothed in spiked armour ; to the ^ unscientific eye they look like an unhappy family of shrimps , spiders ,, and caterpillars . Aad yet these companies complain of the " over-sensitiveness of the public caused by the late epidemic , " and ! say " they see no reason to believe that water from whatever source procured would " prove acceptable . " Happily for this poor over-sensitive public , the other of the two companies has already established a purer-source , gnd ' the satet
a complete system of filtration and deposition . However , . only y from such causes of disease in the community is to be sought in a regularly organised system of inspection , which , perhaps , after the next campaign of cholera , we may hope to hear mentioned iu " the House . " Dr . Hassall goes at length into detailed experiments of tlie changes pro ^ duced in . water by keeping it in leaden cisterns and pipes , the most important fact deducible from which is that chloride of sodium , a . salt which by Dr . Snow ' s observations is said to be most prevalent in the bad water , acts most readily upon the lead , and produces a poisonous water . Another very-important-analytical or chemicaLfact-. elicited ... by __ Rr . .. J & Asa | lLs _ v . Cr _ searches is ,, that Thames water , abounding as it does in animal organic matter , has a tendency to produce fungi . Now it is generally admitted " that the animalcules are soon killed in the stomach , but it is not so proved with regard to the fungi ; these parasites , it seems , may possibly be the cause of the most destructive disease even to man . Upon this point the experiments related by Dr . Hassall are very interesting : —
Many fruits , such aa apples , pears , and peaches , and several vegetables , as tha lettuce , vegetable raaTrow , potato haulm , & c , were inoculated with the sporulea ( seeds ) of fungi ; the result was that they all speedily became diseased , and , in a fewdays , many of them entirely disintegrated and destroyed . It is to be observed that these experiments were made on healthy and growing fruits and vegetables , the ) former still on the trees , the ldtter growing in the earth . In the softer fruits , as the peach and some applos and pears > the effects of the inoculation became visible in les * than twenty-f trar houra ; * dark , spot like that of mortification first appearing , and this gradually extending : in all directions , until the fruit became completely diaorganisod . There are now also many recorded cases in which fungi have attacked the living animal organism , including even man himself . Tlie diaaaaa " niuacardiue /' which occurs , in the silk-worm ,, and many other animals of the same class , aa well as . the peculiar softening of the tails , of fish confined in glass globes , ia attributable to the growth within tlie tlaaue of the animal of the ramifying filaments of fungi . Again , fungi have Been noticed growing on the ulcerated surfaces of the human intestines in cases of fever , they have likewise been observed in certain affections of tho skin , and '
in discharges from tho stomach , bowels , bladder , oud vagina . In connexion with this fungus theory -we should remember that fungi have a most extraordinary and . rapid power of reproduction , as for example in tho formation of yoast , which is the growth of fungus , and wo und Ur .. Snow saying : — It would , seem that tho cholera poison , when reproduced in sufficient quantity , « cta as an irritant on the surfaces of tho stomach and bowels ; or , what ia HtiH more probable , it withdraws fluid from the blood circulating in the onnillarioB »> y » power analhgous to that by which tho epithelial colls of the vanou ^ organa abstract tho different secretion * in the healthy body j for the morbid matter of cholera having the property of reproducing fa own kinrt , must noceH «« rily have some aort of 'tractura / inoituZlytfJofdcdl . It U no objection to thi » view that the structure of tto poison cWo * bo recognised by the microscope ,, for tho matter of unallprc and at chancre can only be recogniaed by their ellecta , and not by their physical properties Intimately connected with the subject of water supply comes that of
Mam* 10,1855.] » • The Le1deb. 2s5 ¦ - ¦...
Mam * 10 , 1855 . ] » THE LE 1 DEB . 2 S 5 ¦ - ¦ ' ' ' ' '"* "' ———_^ ^ aeanpg ^ ^ ^ — ^ f ^—^—1 ^ Ml
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1855, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10031855/page/19/
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