In such cases the atmosphere must have been a rapid poison to those breathing it.
There was another powerful contributory cause to the general insanitation of London, namely, the defilement of the atmosphere which people had to breathe. As one of the Medical Officers of Health said some years later:—
“We should remember that the air we breathe is as much our food as the solids we eat and the liquids we drink, and as much care should be taken that it is free from adulteration.”
London was already the greatest manufacturing city in the world, and the great volumes of smoke proceeding from the numerous factories undoubtedly deteriorated the quality of the air. But it was the noxious vapours proceeding from the various processes of manufacture classified as “noxious trades” which rendered the atmosphere in many parts of London dangerous to health.
Many were the descriptions given of the almost intolerable evils. Thus the Medical Officer of Health for Rotherhithe reported in 1857:—
“In the mile length of Rotherhithe Street there are no less than nine factories for the fabrication of patent manure, that is to say, nine sources of fœtid gases. The process gives out a stench which has occasioned headache, nausea, vomiting, cough, &c. Many complaints have been made by the inhabitants.”
From St. Mary, Newington, “the terrible effluvium of bone-boiling is freely transmitted over the district.”
Some manufacture in a yard in Clerkenwell (1856–7), which had existed until lately, was “one of the most abominable, exceeding anything that the imagination could picture.”
And in every parish or district of London there were slaughter-houses.