London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Lambeth 1866

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth]

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16
illness from Cholera. No case occurred in Lambeth which could
be ascribed to partaking of impure water. The Registrar General
in a Report on the 10th December, remarks—" A most gratifying
and conclusive proof of the good effects of improved water supply
is afforded by the experience of the South London Districts, which
were undrained, and were supplied with the foul sewage water of
the Thames by the Southwark and Lambeth Companies in 1849.
The Lambeth Company got purer water from the Thames above
Teddington Lock before 1854, but the South wark Company only
succeeded in supplying the purer water after the year 1854. In
the present year, both Companies have supplied this better, if not
perfectly pure, water of the Thames; while the shallow pumps
have been dried up by the drains,—with the following remarkable
results:—the deaths by Cholera to 10,000 inhabitants of South
London, were 120 in the year 1849, 87 in 1854, and 8 in tho
year 1866. From Cholera and Diarrhoea the deaths out of tho
same numbers living were 142, and 104, and 15! As tho water
improved the deaths declined to this marvellous extent."
I believe the great Sanitary improvements effected in tho
Parish in providing proper drainage, instead of foul cesspools,
abolishing many miles of open stinking ditches, and the removal
of numerous other nuisances, rendered an outbreak of Cholera,
such as experienced in former years, very improbable. Moreover,
the Sanitary arrangements provided for tho immediate treatment
of Diarrhoea, very frequently preceding Cholera, which if attended
to in that stage, is almost always curable; and, also for the immediate
application of Disinfectants to the Cholera discharges,
which is of the greatest importance, in preventing the spread of
Cholera. By the employment of such means, Lambeth and other
parts of the Metropolis were saved from the ravages of the
Pestilence experienced on former occasions. The virulence and
fatality of the disease being not at all diminished in Continental
Cities, where in 22 Cities and Towns of Belgium and Holland,