cholera

• town conditions


  overcrowded

  now sewars - human waste + rubbish on streets

  cesspits

  poor quality housing - cold and damp
• why were conditions were so bad

  • towns grew quickly
  • factory owners built cheap homes
  • LAISSEZ FAIRE - gov should keep out of people lives + poor were lazy that why they're poor
  • miasma - no understanding of the cause of disease
  • costs - rich didn't want to pay for drainage + sewers - benefits lazy poor people
  • disease caused poverty
• cholera


  1st struck - explained by miasma, punishment from God, mysterious poison, living at a low level

  symptoms - diarrhoea, sickness, dehydration, burst blood vessels made skin blue

  impact:

  • 1832-2-> 31000 deaths
  • 1848-9-> 62000 deaths
  • 1853-4-> 31000 deaths
  • 1866-> 15000 deaths
• 1848-9 epidemic


  caused the 1848 Public Heath Act

  • Board of Health encouraged local authorities to improve conditions
  • Local authorities can do this if they have support of rate payers
  • Local council should appoint Medical Officers of Health to look at improving health

  DIDN'T HELP-RATE PAYERS=RICH--LAISSEZ FAIRE
• John Snow


  1854 - before germ theory

  1. mapped where cholera deaths were
  2. mapped what water pumps were used
  3. noticed people who got water from a particular pump died
  4. brewery workers in same areas didn't get cholera - they drank beer-> water = spreading the disease
  5. took handles off water pumps
  6. no more deaths of cholera
  7. cracked cess pits 1 metre away was leaking into the water
• john snow - significance


  1855 - presented work to gov, it took years for his ideas to be acted on;

  • london - 1858
  • england - 1885

  miasma still believed

  he couldn't prove his work (7years before germ theory - he was dead) - 30 years late Koch found cholera

  HIGH IMPACT FOR THOSE IN THE LOCATION WHERE THE WATER PUMP HANDLE WAS REMOVED