WHAT THEY DID NOT KNOW WAS THAT DIRT WAS UNHEALTHY AND NOT SAFE! .
Today we take clean water for granted. Local councils make sure that the new housing has a piped clean water supply, drains and sewers. But for most of the 19th century this did not happen. It took a lot of time (years even) to accept that everyone needed clean water and proper sewers. Builders did not think that it was their job. They were just wanted to build houses quickly. In sketches it shows people queuing for water in horrible conditions. Such as queuing in muddy, smelling streets bare footed. Some people bought water from water-sellers, but how did they know that it was clean and safe to drink? . All they could have known was that it could have probably came from a filthy river! . Others carried water in buckets, which were collected from the river. The river could have been infected with dirt and disease. Some others collected rainwater that also could have been infected by disease. Most streets were built without drains, which carried away the wastewater. Poorer houses were built on bogy marshy land, which were by the river where it would be difficult to lay pipes. Builders made deep holes in the ground for deposit, but these soon became blocked. Robert Baker wrote when he visited the house of a poor Leeds man and his family in 1842. ‘He was very bad in health and his wife had rheumatism…. The yard had never been dry since he came to it…. In the corner there was a sump hole full of deposit…. The stench was so bad, and especially after rain, the wife could not bare it!’.
Cesspits was the name given to the sump holes, these were not connected to sewers. In stead of sewers ‘Night soilmen’ were paid to clean them out. They would sell the sewage to local farmers. There were not many night soilmen, because they were not paid enough to do their job. So cesspits were left to over flow.
WHAT THEY DID NOT KNOW WAS THAT DIRTY WATER COULD KILL THEM! .
In 1831 and 1832, Britains first cholera epidemic killed 31,000 people. The disease returned again and killed many more people. Cholera was just one killer disease there were others such as T.B, typhoid and typhus e.t.c… In the 19th century people knew that there was a connections between dirt and disease, but no one had shown that germs were the cause of disease. Many doctors believed that sewers and dirty streets gave off a poisonous gas called ‘Miasma’, which they than thought caused illness. Even if doctors showed a connection between dirty drinking water and cholera, councils were slow to take any action. To take any action to provide the labouring poor with clean water costed money. But many middle class ratepayers did not want to see their money spent on the welfare and well being of the poor! .
My conclusion is that housing, water and health was very bad and very unhygienic, even though doctors knew that there were connections between dirty water and cholera. Councils were just too slow to take any action; this caused the cholera to spread even faster! . Providing the poor with clean water I think would have costed a lot of money, which then the councils had to raise up. If the cesspits were cleaned more frequently, I think that would have made a big difference in the spreading of the cholera epidemic, and also if the water supply was clean and disinfected. I think also that cholera would spread quickly in the streets because they were crowded and because a group of families used the same water supply, which might be infected. Or because they might be eating infected foods.
Fabina Nazmin Hussain 9.E
