The following passage respecting the water supply of Paris is from Dr.
Farr’s “Report to the Registrar-General on the Cholera of 1848–49”:—“The
supply of Paris is from various sources, but four-fifths of the water is
from the Canal de l’Ourque, which, by the decision of Napoleon, was also
appropriated to navigation. The water for some years, and in 1832, when
the epidemic was so fatal, was drawn from the dirty basin in which the
boats and barges of the canals rested; but is now drawn from the canal
before it enters the basin.... The mortality of cholera in Paris was
excessive, and in 1832 varied from 80, of 10,000 inhabitants, in the
elegant Chaussée d’Antin and in Montmartre on the heights, to 530 and
520 in the low quartiers of the Hôtel de Ville and the Cité.” (p.
lxxviii.)
The town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne affords a remarkable instance of the
influence of the water supply on the prevalence of cholera. In 1831–32
there were no waterworks at Newcastle; it was supplied, in an
insufficient manner, with spring water, which generally had to be
carried some distance to the houses from “pants” in the streets. The
epidemic was pretty severe at this time. From November 1831 to November
1832 there were 801 deaths from cholera out of a population of 42,760.
The disease prevailed chiefly amongst the poor, and was worst in the
least elevated parts of the town, near the river. Subsequently to 1832,
waterworks were established on the river Tyne, a little above the town;
but these were abandoned, in 1848, in favour of a supply from a rivulet
and springs at Whittle Dean, about ten miles distant. In 1849, there
were but 295 deaths from cholera in a population then increased to
71,847. In the beginning of July 1853, two months before the
reappearance of cholera in England, the Whittle Dean Water Company found
their proper sources insufficient for the demands of the population and
the various factories, and they made use of the former waterworks,
mentioned above, to obtain water from the Tyne. The point at which they
obtained water from the river, is scarcely a mile above Newcastle, and
the tide flows for six miles above the town, carrying the contents of
the sewers with it. There are also villages, containing several
thousands of colliers and ironfounders, on the banks of the Tyne, above
the waterworks. The water from the Tyne was mixed, without filtration,
with that from Whittle Dean, to the extent of one-third; and the mixed
water, so supplied, was discoloured, and contained the large quantity of
7·1 grains of organic matter per gallon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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