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ing of zymotic disease; and I have always found, without any laboured
attempt at research into the unknown for an explanation, whenever an
epidemic has raged along with a continuous special state of the weather, it
has at all times been relieved—occasionally become almost extinct, as with
the force and certainty of a general law—on the occurrence of an opposite
atmospheric condition. So now, what I had been looking for, hoping for,
hourly and for days in succession, took place. For the week ending the 4th
of August the pestilence was at its height; there were 1,040 deaths from
Cholera and Diarrhoea for the seven days. But on that same day the wind
shifts; a lighter atmosphere was noticed ; people breathed more freely ; rain
fell. The type of the disease was instantly changed, and the deaths at once
declined. At the end of the next week—the 11th —still a favourable wind
S.W. and N.W., and more rain, the mortality still lessening. In this way
the weather lasted week after week till the end of September, brisk winds,
chieflp south-west, plenty of rain, resulting in a decline of deaths from a
weekly roll of 1,041 in the commencement of August down to 73.
These were the arrangements set on foot to stay the plague, powers
quite sufficient in themselves, so that any co-operation on tho part of the
officials was altogether superfluous, or any engineering dexterity from the
works at Old Ford.
I openly announced this change as a certainty on the stated conditions,
before the Sanitary Committee the last week of July.
Now, whatever dispute there may be about the origin of the Cholera,
and its relation to the water supply, there can be none as to the localities
where it has found victims. In the parish of Limehouse there are 9 streets
with 100 deaths; in Ratcliff 7 with upwards of GO. One character runs
through the whole of them, as a rule, like Eastfield Street, North Street, and
Northey Street, Limehouse, and William Street, Ratcliff. They are either
built over slush and filth, or the flooring and joists rest on the earth itself, or
but a very few inches above it. These are the places where always has
come fever, just as they have lately been in turn the fatal resorts of
Cholera.
In Burdett Road, Limehouse, there is a group of well-built houses, about
four hundred in number, which have suffered very little from the late epidemics.
A short quarter of a mile off eastward is another group of about 120