No. of Deaths.Ratio.
Agents121 in 49
Bricklayers and builders141 „ 39
Cowkeepers, dairymen, and milkmen81 „ 20
Egg merchants51 „ 6
Fishmongers111 „ 20
Fruiterers and greengrocers121 „ 28
Jobmasters, livery-stable keepers51 „ 37
Oilmen131 „ 46
Paper-makers21 „ 15
Poulterers31 „ 32
Sail-makers21 „ 30
Turners21 „ 50
Ballast-heavers71 „ 24
Coal-porters and coalheavers531 „ 32
Dustmen and scavengers61 „ 39
Founders101 „ 12
Hawkers, etc.671 „ 22
Lithographers31 „ 48
Modellers31 „ 41
Polishers41 „ 36
Sailors, including Greenwich pensioners2991 „ 24
Tanners221 „ 39
Weavers1021 „ 36
Physicians, surgeons, & general practitioners161 „ 265
Magistrates, barristers, conveyancers, and attorneys131 „ 375
Merchants111 „ 348
Auctioneers11 „ 266
Saddlers11 „ 250
Brass-finishers31 „ 318
Coach-makers161 „ 262
Cork-cutters21 „ 279
Footmen and men-servants251 „ 1572
Jewellers, goldsmiths, and silversmiths61 „ 583
Millwrights21 „ 266
Tallow-chandlers21 „ 430
Type-founders11 „ 390
Undertakers21 „ 325
Warehousemen81 „ 472
Watchmakers111 „ 364
Wheelwrights81 „ 294

ABSENCE OF DRAINAGE INCREASES CHOLERA.

There is one remarkable circumstance connected with Dr. Guy’s table. One master-brewer died of cholera, being 1 in 160 of the trade; but no brewer’s man or brewer’s servant is mentioned as having died of this malady, although these men must constitute a very numerous body in London. There must be a few thousands of them. I have, indeed, met with the deaths of two or three of these persons, in looking over the returns of some of the most fatal weeks in 1849; but the brewers’ men seem to have suffered very slightly both in that and the more recent epidemics. The reason of this probably is, that they never drink water, and are therefore exempted from imbibing the cholera poison in that vehicle.

The great prevalence of cholera along the course of rivers has been well known for a quarter of a century; and it meets with a satisfactory explanation from the mode of communication of the disease which I am inculcating. Rivers always receive the refuse of those living on the banks, and they nearly always supply, at the same time, the drinking water of the community so situated. It has sometimes been objected to the propagation of the disease by the water of rivers, that the epidemic travels as often against the stream as with it. The reply to this is, that people travel both against the stream and with it, and thus convey the malady from village to village and from town to town on the banks, whilst the water serves as a medium to propagate the disease amongst those living at each spot, and thus prevents it from dying out through not reaching fresh victims.

The principles I have laid down afford a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances, that absence of drainage promotes the prevalence of cholera, and that it flourishes better on a clay soil than on primitive rocks, sandstone, or gravel. Without drainage, the refuse of the population permeates the ground, and gains access to the pump-wells. Merthyr Tydvil, with 52,863 inhabitants, is entirely without drainage, and the people derive their supply of water from pump-wells. This place has suffered severely from cholera in every epidemic. In 1849 there were 1,682 deaths from this disease, being 234 to each 10,000 inhabitants,—a rate of mortality as high as in Hull and certain of the south districts of London, where the morbid poison of cholera was distributed by the steam-engines of the water companies. The primitive rocks, sandstone, and gravel, generally cause the purification of the water by the separation or oxidation of organic matters, whilst clay does not exert this salutary influence to the same extent.

Since the latter part of 1848, when I first arrived at my present conclusions respecting the mode of communication of cholera, I have become more and more convinced that many other diseases are propagated in the same way.

When the plague visited this country, it was most fatal in London, York, Winchester, and certain other towns having a river of fresh water passing through them. It resembled cholera also in being twice as fatal in the districts on the south of the Thames as in those on the north. The following passage from Stow’s “Survey”, published in 1633, shows the way in which Southwark was supplied with water about the time of the great visitations of plague: “Southwark useth chiefly the water of the Thames, that falls into a great pond at St. Mary Overies, that drives a mill called St. Saviour’s Mill, the owner whereof is one Mr. Gulston. The revenue thereof is supposed by some to be worth 1,300l. a year.”

MODE OF PROPAGATION OF THE PLAGUE.

Although some of the lower parts of the City were supplied with water from the Thames, at the latter part of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, yet the greater part of London north of the Thames was supplied by fountains and conduits, conveying spring water from a distance. The following quaint but poetic account of the conduits of London cannot fail to be interesting: “As nature, by veins and arteries, some great and some small, placed up and down all parts of the body, ministereth blood to every part thereof; so was that wholesome water, which was necessary for the good of London, as blood is for the good and health of the body, conveyed by pipes, wooden or metalline, as by veins, to every part of this famous city.... They were lovely streams indeed that did refresh that noble city, one of which was always at work pouring out itself when the rest lay still. Methinks these several conduits of London stood like so many little but strong forts, to confront and give check to that great enemy, fire, as occasion should be. There, methinks, the water was intrenched and in-garrisoned. The several pipes and vehicles of water that were within these conduits, all of them charged with water, till by turning of the cock they were discharged again, were as so many soldiers within these forts, with their musketry charged, ready to keep and defend these places. And look how enemies are wont to deal with these castles, which they take to be impregnable, and despair of every getting by them,—that is, by attempting to storm them by a close siege: so went the fire to work with these little castles of stone, which were not easy for it to burn down (witness their standing to this day); spoiled them, or almost spoiled them, it hath for the present, by cutting off those supplies of water which had vent to flow to them, melting those leaden channels by which it had been conveyed, and thereby, as it were, starving those garrisons which it could not take by storm. As if the fire had been angry with the poor old tankard-bearers, both men and women, for propagating that element which was contrary to it, and carrying it upon their shoulders, as it were, in state and triumph, it hath even destroyed their trade, and threatens to make them perish by fire who had wont to live by water.”[[33]]

Dr. Farr makes the following remarks on the plague, in his report on the cholera of 1848–9: “It is endemic in the Delta of the Nile, and periodically decimates the population of Cairo and Alexandria.... It grows gradually less fatal up the Nile, and is less frequent and destructive in Upper than in Lower Egypt, in the high lands and in the desert, than on the low lands on the shores of the Mediterranean.” Speaking of Cairo, he says: “Through the midst of it passes the Great Canal, into which the sewers are discharged over carrion, excretion, and mud. At the yearly overflow of the Nile, its waters, filling this canal, are distributed over the city, and drunk by its wretched inhabitants.”