Report on the cholera epidemic of 1854 as it prevailed in the City of London / by John Simon.
- John Simon
- Date:
- 1854
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report on the cholera epidemic of 1854 as it prevailed in the City of London / by John Simon. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![our proportionate population,* if the disease had been equally allotted to the Metropolis; on this occasion, our share has happily been less than two fifths of what, on that principle, might have been predicted to befal us. There are facts which might have led one to expect that the City of London would suffer dis- proportionately much from epidemic Cholera. In the whole mile and a half of its length it is beside the river. Parts of it lie low, and have their drainage influenced by the tide. It is traversed by great streams of refuse from surrounding dis- tricts. It presents the offensive outlets of many large sewers. Its houses stand close together, often with little light or air. In fixed popula- tion (excluding the thousands•]• who frequent it only- by day) it is among the most crowded parts of the * The population of the City varies little, while that of the Metropolis continues rapidly to increase. In 1849, entire London contained about seventeen times the population of the City; it has now probably grown to about nineteen times that population. f On the subject of crowding in the City, some popular mis- understanding prevails, which it may be well to remove. The census counts as inhabitants of the City only those who sleep within it, not those who merely have daily occupation there. Yet that enumeration gives to the City such crowding as is among the densest of the Metropolis—crowding, which, over our square mile of surface averages more than 200 residents per acre. To appreciate this, as compared with the condition of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24399413_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
