Report on the mortality of cholera in England, 1848-49.
- General Register Office Northern Ireland
- Date:
- 1852
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report on the mortality of cholera in England, 1848-49. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
119/510
![Food. Water. venoms, as well as vermin and vice, to lodging-houses, workhouses, and gaols over the country. This peculiar and degraded race can only be dealt with by special measures. (8.) Food. The temperate use of sound meat, bread, rice, potatoes, grapes, apples, and other fruit for food—with exercise—and sweet water, beer, cider, wine, for beverage, are excellent preservatives before and in times of pestilence. The first great epidemic of cholera in India was preceded by the failure and deterioration of the rice crops; and in England the large importations of grain for three years before 1832 and before 1849 show that the home crop of food had failed, and suffered in quality. The vege- table acids and other compounds in fruits are an essential part of food: that the want of them causes scurvy, undermines the general health, and prepares the way for the zymotic diseases, is proved by the experience of the Navy, and by the most decisive observations. The exemption of Herefordshire from cholera is evidence that cider, notwithstanding the popular prejudice, is a much safer beverage in the time of an epidemic than the spirits which were so largely consumed during the time of cholera in the places where it was most fatal.* (9.) Water. The precautions to take against cholera, in regard to water, are well stated by Dr. Snow ; and they are of so simple a nature that, considering all the facts, no person can prudently neglect them.f (a.) Water into which sewers flow, or which is navigated by persons living in boats, or which is any other way contaminated by the contents of drains or cesspools, should be entirely disused. [To warn any class of men against the use of unclean excremental water, even filtered, may appear useless. But it is now known that it enters into the supply of some of the principal cities of Europe, and contaminates the eau sucree of Paris as well as the house water of London. The disagreeable revolting nature of this truth has probably been a cause of its suppression, and the consequent perpetuation of an insufferable nuisance.] (b.) Hand-basins and towels, with sufficient water, should always be in readiness in the sick person’s room, where every one should observe strict cleanliness: nurses and other people should invariably wash their hands before touching food. (c.) The healthy should be separated from the sick, and be lemoved to another abode when they have no place but the sick-room in which to prepare and take their meals. id.) Soiled linen should be immersed in water until it can be scalded and washed ; for if it should become dry the matter might be wafted about in the form of dust. [The washing of the linen of cholera patients in the ordinary way is apparently not unattended with danger.] The sanatory value of pure water, as well as the danger of habitually using water holding organic matter of any sort in solution, has been known from the earliest period. Instinct and science hallow springs and streams of living water. It is a difficult engineering task to place an adequate supply of fresh water within the reach of every householder in the large towns : but the task is of such vital importance that it cannot be neglected ; and the mission of bringing it within the range of the municipal insti- tutions of London, Paris, and every city, is too beneficent to be overlooked by statesmen. The quality of the best water is only to be discovered by experience; * It lias been shown, in the Lancet of January 31st, 1852, that the pickles now on sale in London contain copper solutions, which, taken in considerable quantity, induce attacks somewhat resembling cho- lera. £- In the whole of 16 different samples of pickles analyzed for copper, that poisonous metal was discovered in various amounts: 2 of the samples contained a small quantity ; 8 rather much ; 1 a con- siderable quantity; 3 a very considerable quantity; in 1 copper was present in highly deleterious amount ; and in 2, in poisonous amounts,” The vinegar was weak, and adulterated with sulphuric acid. These analyses of the common articles of food are a great public benefit, and will promote public health by increasing the vigilance, skill, and honesty of manufacturers and traders. Pickles, properly made, are wholesome articles of food ; and much of their discredit is 110 doubt due to the adulterations so ably exposed by the Lancet. f Slightly altered from Paper on Cholera, by J. Snow, M.D., p. 23.; read May 5, June 2, 1851, before the Epidemiological Society.’ j](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21308251_0119.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
