With the trottered feet of a flu epidemic stalking the capital, I've paid a visit to the unlikely spot where the science of epidemiology began. Not a hospital, nor a university, nor indeed a science laboratory, but a water pump in a very ordinary central London street. Cover your nose and follow me...
The centre of Soho is, and indeed was, a maze of streets. These days the area is packed with restaurants, bars and offices, but in the mid 19th century this was a relatively poor residential neighbourhood. Sanitation in these tightly-packed homes was less than ideal, with no internal plumbing to speak of and undrained cesspits in the cellars. A perfect breeding ground for what was to become "the most terrible outbreak of cholera which ever occurred in this kingdom".
The outbreak began on the last day of August 1854, and within a week had killed off ten percent of local residents. Rich and poor, young and old, all were struck down apparently indiscriminately, and each in a matter of hours from the appearance of initial symptoms to agonising death. Common understanding at the time was that the cholera was spread via an airborne "miasma", i.e. that some form of foul air was to blame. Given the polluted stink of Victorian London, this explanation would have appeared convincing. But one local man noticed what others had not, and in doing so kicked off a brand new science.
John Snow was an anaesthetist living nearby in Frith Street, and was already a miasma-sceptic following a nasty cholera outbreak south of the river five years previously. He took this latest opportunity to track all 500 deaths on a map, and noticed that the homes of the victims appeared to cluster around one particular corner of Soho. More precisely they were focused around the corner of Broad Street and Cambridge Street, where stood a water pump used by all of those struck down by the disease. One of the houses nextdoor - 18 deaths. Across the street - at least one casualty in almost every house from Dufours Place to Berwick Street. Whereas at the Poland Street workhouse (with its own pump) only a handful of residents died, and at the Broad Street brewery (where they drank only liquor) no casualties at all. Every death, even those which appeared seemingly random, could be traced back to a sip of water drawn from that fateful Broad Street pump.
At John Snow's insistence the pump's handle was removed, and almost overnight the outbreak ended. Part of this was coincidental timing - many of the surviving residents had already fled from the area and were drinking healthier water elsewhere. But Snow was to be proven absolutely correct, and a leaky infected cesspit was later shown to be the indirect source of this waterborne infection. He wrote up his results in a compelling treatise, and from such beginnings a new branch of preventative medicine began.
Broad Street still exists today, though it's now called Broadwick Street. This is a wide semi-cobbled thoroughfare linking Carnaby Street with Wardour Street, and an ever-popular rat-run for a steady stream of cars and cabs. At the foot of Poland Street a replica water pump has been installed, its handle duly removed, in commemoration of Snow's great leap forward. It's not quite in the correct location, however, because it ought to rise up from the pinkgranite kerbstone in front of the pub on the opposite street corner. The pub's called the John Snow, naturally (although the great physician was actually teetotal and would no doubt be shocked by this inappropriate comemmoration). On summer evenings the pavement throngs with drinkers spilling out from the bar, gossiping in the open air with a cooling pint in hand. I doubt many of them realise that liquids dispensed from that very spot once killed hundreds of people.
Cheers John, you helped to make urban life a whole lot safer.
The centre of Soho is, and indeed was, a maze of streets. These days the area is packed with restaurants, bars and offices, but in the mid 19th century this was a relatively poor residential neighbourhood. Sanitation in these tightly-packed homes was less than ideal, with no internal plumbing to speak of and undrained cesspits in the cellars. A perfect breeding ground for what was to become "the most terrible outbreak of cholera which ever occurred in this kingdom".
At John Snow's insistence the pump's handle was removed, and almost overnight the outbreak ended. Part of this was coincidental timing - many of the surviving residents had already fled from the area and were drinking healthier water elsewhere. But Snow was to be proven absolutely correct, and a leaky infected cesspit was later shown to be the indirect source of this waterborne infection. He wrote up his results in a compelling treatise, and from such beginnings a new branch of preventative medicine began.
