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5
have had nothing to do in bringing about an epidemic ? Then add to the list
the numerous factories on Bow-common, and more or less throughout the
eastern district, the comparatively stagnant water in the docks, as well as that
charged with organic matter in and about the poorer dwellings at a low
elevation, in some cases only two feet above, and vast numbers many feet
actually below, Trinity high-water mark, and there is to be found an aggregate
of filth, I believe I am not wrong in saying, not to be equalled by all the
rest of the metropolis. At this time the Thames at Greenwich was 68
degrees, so that from a large tidal stream to stagnant water like the canals,
it was probably here at 80 degs. of heat. It is a fact that organic matter in
water at 60 degs. undergoes a fermentation, poisonous gases are thrown off,
and deadly vapours, so that it would require slight calculation to estimate the
influence of the heat on these masses of liquid filth, continuing for days together,
and then conveyed exactly in a line with the cholera field. The records of
medical science afford plenty of cases in illustration. The outbreak of
choleraic diarrhoea, attended with many deaths, at the Carlisle Lunatic Asylum,
as related by Dr. Clouston, is a case in point. Here the sewage of this institution
had been thrown over a heavy, clayey land in the neighbourhood,
and a favouring wind did the mischief. It was found when the wind was away
from the asylum the disease was at once relieved; and then again, when in
an opposite direction, disease and death increased.
It is a fact, that within 200 yards of the Regent's Canal, in the Limehouse
district alone, 200 deaths have taken place. A consequently low elevation
may however, in part account for this.
I have been informed by many intelligent persons, since these views have
been made known, that at this very time, and for some days in succession,
they felt a burning choking sensation in the throat mouth and nostrils, never
before experienced, provocative of cough, sneezing, and urgent desire to
expectorate.
Now, if we look at the map and see the river in the south, the Bow
Creek in the east, and Sir George Duckett's Canal in the north, there is to
be seen the area of mischief. And it is very remarkable, allowing for the
action of the excessive heat in the production of cholera miasm, acted upon
by a primary atmospheric influence, that the east and north-east wind following,
would exactly convey this poison where the epidemic was mostly felt,