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 mortality
occurred. 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.
[Sidenote: IRRUPTION OF CHOLERA AT DEPTFORD.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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