Genealogy Chat

For thoughs of you that have found Relles disapiring in our fair capital Between 1848 and 1853, The programe I saw this afternoon might explain why. Between thoughs dates there was a CHOLERA epidemic in London it mainly hit the southern part of tne city, but as far North as Soho and Finsbury had there fair share of deaths from it.

Useful info to have to hand - thanks, Peter Happy Christmas! Christine

Found this by googling: " a grim picture of London's environmental contamination, absence of adequate sanitation, and lack of viable solutions to problems caused by human, animal, and industrial waste, following Olson, he also asks the pointd question, how filthy was London actually? Cleanliness is in the eye of the beholder, and there is a difference between the dismal levels of sanitation and public health that historians perceive in hindsight and how most contemporaries perceived them. Late Georgian London was generally considered clean and healthy by most peo- ple. Donald Olsen cites evidence that visitors to London before 1830 were quite pleased by the healthy climate and sanitation of the capital. He goes on to speculate that London's early Victorian reputation for filthiness stemmed most directly from the totally unexpected and shockingly swift cholera epidemic of 1832. The epidemic threw the medical profession into a panic, for no one could explain what cholera was, let alone how to prevent it. Its horrifying symptoms and devastating mortality led the public and the media to overdramatize its actual impact. Although cholera returned in 1848, in 1853, and in 1866, each time prompting cries for pollution control it actually killed fewer people than probably any other epidemic infection. John Snow's famous demonstration of the waterborne nature of the disease was not accepted until after the last of these epidemics". Dr John Snow solved the cholera source after he noticed that a street in London had many families affected at one end and hardly any at the other end. He found that what the infected households had in common was that they got their water supply from a pump. The authorities dismissed his theory so he removed the handle from the pump - and the cases of cholera stopped. There's a pub named in his honour in London, which is ironic as he was a teetotaller! nell