Diseases in Industrial Cities in the Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution hundreds of people moved into over crowded cities to search for jobs which led to overcrowding and an increase in waste production that people at the time didn't know how to do with. With little knowledge on where diseases came from or what caused them it was nearly impossible for people to protect themselves. It is thought that "The greatest killer in the cities was tuberculosis (TB)" (historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site) and "killed one-third of all those who died in Britian between 1800 and 1850." There was a common misleading belief that "disease was spread by bad smells and invisible poisonous clouds (miasmas)." This was a serious issue because when there was a typhoid outbreak people searched for the smell that was causing this disease and found nothing because it was spread through the water they drank. Edwin Chadwick even tried to clean London by removing its bad smelling sewage into the Thames River which gave Cholera a chance to spread and infect 30,000 Londoners killing 15,000.
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Urban Conditions
When the Industrial Revolution started and the city’s population was increasing people were hurrying to build houses and many were “constructed too quickly in terraced rows. Some of these houses had just a small yard at the rear where an outside toilet was placed.”(Urban Conditions by http://www.saburchill.com) Others were even worse and were so close together that they could only fit one communal toilet and these toilets were earth closets and didn’t flush. “Usually they were emptied by the ‘soil men’ at night. These men took the solid human waste away. However, in poorer districts, the solid waste was just heaped in a large pile close to the houses.” These piles were breeding ground for diseases and the liquid waste often carried germs into their water supply causing outbreaks of disease like cholera. Cholera was feared by everyone due to the fact it spread quickly and could infect anyone from the poor to the rich and the noble because they often had the same source of water. “A cholera victim was first stricken with violent sickness and diarrhea. This caused intense dehydration (loss of body fluids). Over 50% of the people who contracted the disease died, often within 24 hours of showing signs of the first symptoms.” Even after Dr. John Snow discovered cholera bacteria was found in polluted waters people still didn’t believe him and ignored his discovery. “In 1854 Dr. Snow was able to demonstrate the link between cholera and the water supply” “When Dr. Snow removed the handle from the pump to prevent people from using it, the cholera fatalities in Soho fell dramatically.” Even with this evidence people were still skeptical and would only be taken seriously later on. When it was finally accepted sanitation and clean drinking water became a greater priority.
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