The water of the Chelsea Company has been alluded to above, but whether this water had any share in the propagation of cholera or not, it is perfectly in accordance with the mode of communication of the disease which I am advocating, that it should spread more in the crowded habitations of the poor, in Westminster, than in the commodious houses of the Belgrave district. In examining the effect of polluted water as a medium of the cholera poison, it is necessary to bear constantly in mind the more direct way in which the poison is also swallowed, as I explained in the commencement of this work. As regards St. Olave’s and Wandsworth, Dr. Baly was apparently not aware that, whilst almost every house in the first of these districts is supplied by the water company, and has no other supply, the pipes of the company extend to only a part of the Wandsworth district, a large part of it having only pump-wells.

The epidemic of 1849 was a continuance or revival of that which commenced in the autumn of 1848, and there are some circumstances connected with the first cases which are very remarkable, and well worthy of notice. It has been already stated (page [3]) that the first case of decided Asiatic cholera in London, in the autumn of 1848, was that of a seaman from Hamburgh, and that the next case occurred in the very room in which the first patient died. These cases occurred in Horsleydown, close to the Thames. In the evening of the day on which the second case occurred in Horsleydown, a man was taken ill in Lower Fore Street, Lambeth, and died on the following morning. At the same time that this case occurred in Lambeth, the first of a series of cases occurred in White Hart Court, Duke Street, Chelsea, near the river. A day or two afterwards, there was a case at 3, Harp Court, Fleet Street. The next case occurred on October 2nd, on board the hulk Justitia, lying off Woolwich; and the next to this in Lower Fore Street, Lambeth, three doors from where a previous case had occurred. The first thirteen cases were all situated in the localities just mentioned; and on October 5th there were two cases in Spitalfields.

Now, the people in Lower Fore Street, Lambeth, obtained their water by dipping a pail into the Thames, there being no other supply in the street. In White Hart Court, Chelsea, the inhabitants obtained water for all purposes in a similar way. A well was afterwards sunk in the court; but at the time these cases occurred the people had no other means of obtaining water, as I ascertained by inquiry on the spot. The inhabitants of Harp Court, Fleet Street, were in the habit, at that time, of procuring water from St. Bride’s pump, which was afterwards closed on the representation of Mr. Hutchinson, surgeon, of Farringdon Street, in consequence of its having been found that the well had a communication with the Fleet Ditch sewer, up which the tide flows from the Thames. I was informed by Mr. Dabbs, that the hulk Justitia was supplied with spring water from the Woolwich Arsenal; but it is not improbable that water was occasionally taken from the Thames alongside, as was constantly the practice in some of the other hulks, and amongst the shipping generally.

When the epidemic revived again in the summer of 1849, the first case in the sub-district “Lambeth; Church, 1st part,” was in Lower Fore Street, on June 27th; and on the commencement of the epidemic of the present year, the first case of cholera in any part of Lambeth, and one of the earliest in London, occurred at 52, Upper Fore Street, where also the people had no water except what they obtained from the Thames with a pail, as I ascertained by calling at the house. Many of the earlier cases this year occurred in persons employed amongst the shipping in the river, and the earliest cases in Wandsworth and Battersea have generally been amongst persons getting water direct from the Thames, or from streams up which the Thames flows with the tide. It is quite in accordance with what might be expected from the propagation of cholera through the medium of the Thames water, that it should generally affect those who draw it directly from the river somewhat sooner than those who receive it by the more circuitous route of the pipes of a water company.

THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853, IN LONDON.

London was without cholera from the latter part of 1849 to August 1853. During this interval an important change had taken place in the water supply of several of the south districts of London. The Lambeth Company removed their water works, in 1852, from opposite Hungerford Market to Thames Ditton; thus obtaining a supply of water quite free from the sewage of London. The districts supplied by the Lambeth Company are, however, also supplied, to a certain extent, by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, the pipes of both companies going down every street, in the places where the supply is mixed, as was previously stated. In consequence of this intermixing of the water supply, the effect of the alteration made by the Lambeth Company on the progress of cholera was not so evident, to a cursory observer, as it would otherwise have been. It attracted the attention, however, of the Registrar-General, who published a table in the “Weekly Return of Births and Deaths” for 26th November 1853, of which the following is an abstract, containing as much as applies to the south districts of London.

TABLE IV.

Water Companies. Sources of Supply. Aggregate of Districts supplied chiefly by the respective Companies. Deaths in 100,000 inhabitants.
Population. Deaths by Cholera in 13 wks. ending Nov. 19.
(1) Lambeth and (2) Southwark and Vauxhall Thames, at Thames Ditton and at Battersea 346,363 211 61
Southwark and Vauxhall Thames, at Battersea 118,267 111 94
(1) Southwark and Vauxhall, (2) Kent Thames, at Battersea; the Ravensbourne, in Kent, & ditches and wells 17,805 19 107

It thus appears that the districts partially supplied with the improved water suffered much less than the others, although, in 1849, when the Lambeth Company obtained their supply opposite Hungerford Market, these same districts suffered quite as much as those supplied entirely by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, as was shown in table III, p. [62]. The Lambeth water extends to only a small portion of some of the districts necessarily included in the group supplied by both Companies; and when the division is made a little more in detail, by taking sub-districts instead of districts, the effect of the new water supply is shown to be greater than appears in the above table. The Kent Water Company was introduced into the table by the Registrar-General on account of its supplying a small part of Rotherhithe. The following interesting remarks appeared, respecting this portion of Rotherhithe, in the “Weekly Return” of December 10, 1853:—

THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853.