The Broad Street pump : an episode in the cholera epidemic of 1854 / by H. Whitehead.

  • Whitehead, Henry, 1825-1896.
Date:
[1862]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Broad Street pump : an episode in the cholera epidemic of 1854 / by H. Whitehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    might he favourably contrasted in sani- tary matters with other parts of London which were lightly visited. Its level, too, is comparatively high, in which respect it presents an exception to a supposed law which had previously seemed to operate in connecting cholera mere especially with the lower levels of London. All this may at first sight appear very unsatisfactory ; and so it appeared at the time to such of us as cared to speculate as to the origin of the outbreak. Never- theless we were not without hope that its remarkable character would render its determining cause somewhat easy of detection. We had observed that its limits in every direction were most sharply defined, that those limits lay within a narrow compass, and that the beginning of the outbreak was very clearly marked in point of time. There had been scattered cases of cholera throughout the parish before September; but it was evident that something new and distinct suddenly came into opera- tion on the last night in August. What that was we trusted might eventually be ascertained. It was therefore with great satisfac- tion that we heard that, on the motion of Dr. Lankester, a committee had been appointed by the Vestry of St. James’s to inquire into all the circumstances of the case. Vestries have a bad character with sanitary reformers. But, whatever ground there may be for the imputation cast upon other vestries, it is but an act of bare justice to say that, as far as my experience goes, the St. James’s Vestry must stand exempted from the general condemnation. Of course there were some of the vestrymen who deprecated inquiry as likely to be “ detrimental to the reputation of the parish ; ” but the majority persisted in going through with it, thus manifesting the same spirit which had formerly induced them to institute an elaborate investigation into the sanitary state of the parish, the failure of which to secure immunity from pestilence only shows, as will pre- sently appear, how very minute such investigations ought to be. The Cholera Inquiry Committee was eventually composed of eight vestrymen, six medical men, and one other clergy- man besides myself; and, after long and laborious examination of every cir- cumstance which could possibly throw light oil the subject of our inquiry, a report, drawn up by Mr. J. Marshall, then assistant-surgeon and now surgeon of University Hospital, was presented to the Vestry,—which report, if it could have been widely circulated, would have rendered it wholly unnecessary for me to write another line upon the matter to which it relates. In this investigation, whilst we did not overlook such general conditions as might have operated in producing a widely-spread epidemic, we yet felt that they must have required some special or local conditions to intensify its influ- ence within the small compass which demanded our more immediate atten- tion. Every local condition, therefore, of the infected district, such as elevation of site, nature of soil and subsoil, sur- face and ground plan, streets and courts, density and character of population, internal economy of houses, cesspools, house-drains, and sewerage, was minutely investigated. But, though we found much to lament or condemn in most of these particulars, we could not find in them any satisfactory explanation of the sharp line of demarcation which on every side surrounded what we termed the “cholera area” in the midst of a densely peopled neighbourhood; nor could Ave derive from them any theory which accounted for the apparent ano- malies within the area itself. It ay as, hoAvever, in these very ano- malies that Ave found the clue which ultimately led us to a unanimous con- clusion “ that the sudden, seA'ere, and “ concentrated outbreak, beginning on “August 31st, and lasting for the feAV “ first days of September, AAras in some “ manner attributable to the use of the “ impure water of the Avell in Broad “ Street.” One member of the committee, the late Dr. Suoav, even before the com- mittee was formed, had propounded this i 2