On the mode of communication of cholera — John Shaqi
On the mode of communication of choleraSnow, John
History
On the mode of communication of cholera
Snow, John
Cholera
The additional facts that I have been able to ascertain are in
accordance with those above related; and as regards the small number of
those attacked, who were believed not to have drank the water from Broad
Street pump, it must be obvious that there are various ways in which the
deceased persons may have taken it without the knowledge of their
friends. The water was used for mixing with spirits in all the public
houses around. It was used likewise at dining-rooms and coffee-shops.
The keeper of a coffee-shop in the neighbourhood, which was frequented
by mechanics, and where the pump-water was supplied at dinner time,
informed me (on 6th September) that she was already aware of nine of her
customers who were dead. The pump-water was also sold in various little
shops, with a teaspoonful of effervescing powder in it, under the name
of sherbet; and it may have been distributed in various other ways with
which I am unacquainted. The pump was frequented much more than is
usual, even for a London pump in a populous neighbourhood.
There are certain circumstances bearing on the subject of this outbreak
of cholera which require to be mentioned. The Workhouse in Poland Street
is more than three-fourths surrounded by houses in which deaths from
cholera occurred, yet out of five hundred and thirty-five inmates only
five died of cholera, the other deaths which took place being those of
persons admitted after they were attacked. The workhouse has a pump-well
on the premises, in addition to the supply from the Grand Junction Water
Works, and the inmates never sent to Broad Street for water. If the
mortality in the workhouse had been equal to that in the streets
immediately surrounding it on three sides, upwards of one hundred
persons would have died.
There is a Brewery in Broad Street, near to the pump, and on perceiving
that no brewer’s men were registered as having died of cholera, I called
on Mr. Huggins, the proprietor. He informed me that there were above
seventy workmen employed in the brewery, and that none of them had
suffered from cholera,—at least in a severe form,—only two having been
indisposed, and that not seriously, at the time the disease prevailed.
The men are allowed a certain quantity of malt liquor, and Mr. Huggins
believes they do not drink water at all; and he is quite certain that
the workmen never obtained water from the pump in the street. There is a
deep well in the brewery, in addition to the New River water.
At the percussion-cap manufactory, 37 Broad Street, where, I understand,
about two hundred workpeople were employed, two tubs were kept on the
premises always supplied with water from the pump in the street, for
those to drink who wished; and eighteen of these workpeople died of
cholera at their own homes, sixteen men and two women.
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