London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Wandsworth 1856
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Wandsworth District, The Board of Works (Clapham, Putney, Streatham, Tooting & Wandsworth)]
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drinking it on account of its bad smell and very visible impurity. There
has not been time for a chemical analysis of this specimen, but there is
little doubt its total amount of impurity will be found nearly as high as
that of the specimen before referred to. The drainage now in progress
here will be a very great boon to the inhabitants.
The results obtainable from a chemical examination of these same waters,
supplied by me in 1854, to Dr. R. D. Thompson, who kindly undertook
the analysis, will be best understood by a table contrasting their impurities
with those of other waters of the metropolis examined in the same year.
Table exhibiting the Degrees or Grains per Gallon of Impurity of certain Metropolitan Well Waters—Distilled water being taken as 0.
| Date. | Situation of Wells. | Total Impurity in Degrees or Total Residue in Grains. | Organic Matter and Nitric Acid. |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 18, 1854 | Aldgate pump | 49°10 | 13°94 |
| February, 1854 | Ditto | 44.04 | 6.30 |
| March, 1854 | St. Thomas's pump | 89.70 | 10.40 |
| Mav 15, 1854 | Camberwell | 62.67 | 10.69 |
| November 25, 1854 | Ditto | 48.72 | 7.26 |
| July 20, 1854 | Blackheath | 28. 00 | |
| September, 1854 | Broad Street, Soho | 92.06 | 7.80 |
| „ „ | Buckingham Palace | 59.00 | 8.08 |
| „ „ | Charing Cross Artesian well, supplied at Buckingham Palace | 56.04 | 2.12 |
| November, 1854 | Putney, Cock's Buildings | 180.40 | 16.00 |
| „ „ | „ Price's Folly | 101.30 | 14.00 |
| „ „ | „ Stratford Grove | 67.20 | 14.80 |
By a mere glance at this table it will be readily conceded that I had no
slight grounds for adhering to the opinion I formed several years ago, that
the exceedingly impure water of Cock's Buildings, Price's Folly, and other
places, had much to do, if not with the production, certainly with the
aggravation of many of the cases of cholera which fell under my notice at
that period amongst the inhabitants of these cesspool-polluted neighbourhoods.
Several cases of cholera of the severest character occurred in both the
above named localities, as well in 1848-9 as in 1854.
It has been stated on good authority that from a calculation made on
the basis of the last census, there are in London 300,000 cesspools, whose
contents form an exhaling surface of 2,700,000 feet, nearly 62 acres, or
17,550,000 cubic feet." This, in the words of my authority, "is equal
to one enormous elongated stagnant cesspool 10 miles in length, 50 feet in
width, and 6 feet 6 inches in depth, which would extend through London,
from the Broadway at Hammersmith to Bow Bridge, over the river Lea—
a distance of 10 miles. If such a gigantic cesspool of filth were to be
seen it would fill the mind with horror; but as it is shown above, a vast
number of small ones, which added together equal it in extent, is dotted
all over the town; in fact, it may be said that the ground, in old districts
more particularly, is literally honeycombed with these barbarous things."
In the grounds attached to some large mansions in this town cesspools