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20
in the eastern districts of London, that the low
mortality from the disease was referable to the
active sanitary measures employed during the whole
period of the epidemic.*
This accords with all previous experience of
the disease; for wherever attention has been paid
to the sanitary condition of a place, the force of
the epidemic has been checked, and the aggregate
mortality from it has been small. London, for example,
which has always been in advance of other
cities in its sanitary arrangements, has invariably
suffered less from visitations of cholera than they
have. In the epidemic of 1831-32, while the
mortality from the disease in London was only at
the rate of 36 per 10,000 of the population, in Paris
*During the cholera epidemic a staff of workman, forty-five in number,
acting under the direction of the sanitary committee, were occupied in
lime-whiting the courts and alleys of the City, as well as in disinfecting
and cleansing the worst class of houses (2,000 in number). Another
staff of men, fifteen in number, were engaged in flushing, cleansing, and
disinfecting the courts and alleys (184 in number); and a third staff of
fifteen extra men were employed in supplying carbolic acid to the watercarts,
and so keeping the streets constantly drenched with a weak solution
of the disinfectant.
In this manner 8 tons of chloride of lime, 4 cwt. of carbolate of lime, and
nearly 1,000 gallons of carbolic acid were used, at a cost to the Commissioners
for extra labour and materials of nearly £3,000.
Nor must I omit to mention the energetic measures taken by the
guardians of the three City Unions, who for the time were invested with
sanitary powers.