During the industrial revolution household rubbish was frequently thrown into narrow streets and the air was filled with black smoke from the factory’s chimney. Dirty streets and cramped living were a perfect breeding space for diseases. More than 31,000 people died during an outbreak of cholera in 1832 and families were inflicted with typhus, smallpox, and dysentery. Most Families were living in houses in unsanitary terrible built homes. Meaning more ‘better’ homes had to be built. In the rush to build homes, many were constructed too quickly in terraced rows. Some of these houses had small yards at the rear were most toilets was placed. Others had ‘back to back’ communal toilets. The more people that were living in these states, it quickly …show more content…
Usually, they were emptied by the ‘soil men’ at night. These men took the solid human waste away. However, in poorer places, the solid waste was just thrown in a large pile close to the houses. The liquid from the toilets including the waste seeped down into the earth and contaminated the water supplies. These liquids carried diseases causing germs to grow in the water. The most frightening disease of all was cholera. Many families dealt with cholera and many did not survive. Cholera originated from India. It quickly spread from Russia and Asia then eventually Europe during the industrial revolution. By this time Cholera has already reached London in February 1832. Cholera is a violent sickness and diarrhoea. It causes dehydration and loss of Blood fluid in the body. Over 50% of families who contracted the disease died within 24hours of showing symptoms. During the early 19th Century working class Families had no knowledge how the disease was contracted and was thought it was transmitted from poisons, foul smelling air. It was only in 1849 that it killed 70,000 people until Dr. John Snow then discovered that cholera bacteria was contracted from polluted
...children to have the smallpox vaccination. Towns began building pure water systems and sewer systems, creating a much cleaner environment.
The book, The Ghost Map, tells the story of the cholera outbreak that took place in England during the medieval era. During this time, London became popular, causing it to become one of the most populous urban cities in England. However, it suffered from overcrowding, a large lower class, and little health regulations. As a result, living conditions and water supply were not the cleanest, and many died from the disease cholera. Though this epidemic led to many deaths/illnesses during it’s time, it has proven to be helpful and important to public health today. Some public health advancements that have occurred as a result include healthier, cleaner, and longer lives lived.
The outburst spread of diseases in a population causes people to panic and become hopeless. The main reason diseases spread is due to unsanitary living styles. Also when a disease first begins, it is really hard to find a cure right away. A very deadly, infectious disease known as Typhus spread during the Holocaust. Typhus is caused by rickettsia and is spread by lice and flees.
Beginning in 1850, disease was underway again in Rio de Janeiro after being absent since 1686. In just three years, 6,500 people died of Yellow Fever. The fever disappeared for some time only to return again in the 1890’s where 14,944 died of the disease. Between 1850 and 1901, 56,000 people died of Yellow Fever alone. In response to all the diseases, the Central Board of Public Hygiene was created and they had to act fast in order to prevent any more deaths. The Central Board of Public Hygiene’s job was to lay plumbing underground that would be the underground sewage system. This reform was supposed to eliminate “waste” on the streets and to have cleaner water throughout the city. Instead, disease worsened as the years went on. Of course, like most issues, someone was to blame and those who were blamed were the servants that lived on the streets and worked in the houses. It was obvious that since they were living in the filth they were clearly spreading the disease and when they would work in the houses of their servants they would pass the disease down to the children and the rest of the household. This eventually led to the destruction of cortiços.
While poor drainage and waste disposal procedures can be seen as a direct result of fever and epidemic; it is important first to look at the dietary practices of the working classes which would greatly contribute to their squalid living conditions.
In crowded conditions, the rate of infection is even more rapid. The diseases brought over to America were mainly spread by the respiratory method. The pathogenesis of infection is through the ingestion of contaminated food and water. Throughout Europe during the 15th century, food and water were contaminated with fecal matter and by unsanitary habits ( i.e. the lack of bathing). The traumatic route of infection is through insect and animal bites.
The rail market continued to grow and by the 1860’s all major cities within the United States were connected by rail. The main diseases that showed the most virulence during the time were cholera, yellow fever and consumption, now known as tuberculosis. The 9th census mortality data showed that 1 out 7 deaths from disease were caused by tuberculosis and 1 out of 24 disease deaths were resulting from cholera. . Until the 1870s the general consensus of the spread of disease through population was still the primitive idea that it came from the individual and not specifically the pathogen.... ... middle of paper ... ...
The filth of the cities promoted the spread of disease faster than doctors could discover a cure. This encouraged large outbreaks of many deadly diseases. And it is said that throughout this period there were people who went about the cities and towns with wagons calling "Bring out your dead!" in a fashion similar to that of the Medieval era during the bubonic plague (Which, by the way, was not yet a dead disease).
A.1 Concerning John Barnes, how was cholera communicated? What were the modes of disease transmission? What is the correct epidemiological term for the modes of transmission that were identified?
By the 1840’s high rates of disease were ascribed to the housing many of New York’s poverty-stricken immigrants lived in. Fear spread that while disease was rooted in the polluted living conditions of New York’s poorer communities, disease could easily spread to the more well off citizens too. Public health officials realized that the city’s soiled streets and polluted sewers were a health risk to all New Yorkers. In the mid-nineteenth century, New York possessed a primitive sewage system. Poorly planned sewers spanned the city, but most citizens’ homes did not connect to these pipes. Instead, most New Yorkers relied on outdoor outhouses and privies. Because of the high levels of unmanaged waste, epidemics of infectious diseases were commonplace in New York. The city battled outbreaks of smallpox, typhoid, malaria, yellow fever, cholera, and tuberculosis. In 1849, a rash of cholera struck the city, killing more than five thousand people. A wave of typhoid in the mid-1860’s resulted in a similar amount of deaths. Port cities and transportation hubs, like New York, were especially prone to outbursts of infectious diseases because of the high volume of travelers that passed through the city. Americans realized that they were contracting and dying from infectious diseases at an alarming rate, but weren’t entirely sure of why or how. (Web, par. 17,
American towns industrialized all throughout the nineteenth century, irresistible ailments developed as a genuine danger. The presentation of new workers and the development of vast urban zones permitted already confined sicknesses to spread rapidly and contaminate larger populations. As industrialization occurred, towns developed into cities, and people relocated to them. The expanded interest for shoddy lodging by urban vagrants prompted ineffectively assembled homes that poorly accommodated individual cleanliness. Outside laborers in the nineteenth century frequently lived in cramped dwellings that consistently lacked fundamental comforts, for example, running water, ventilation, and toilets. These conditions were perfect for the spread
Sanitary conditions in the West were practically non-existent. In the cities, horse manure covered the streets. Housewives emptied garbage, dishwater, and chamber pots into the middle of the city streets where free-roaming pigs devoured the waste. The pigs left their urine and feces on the streets. It was not easy to wash clothes. Many people had clothes splattered with manure, mud, sweat, and tobacco juice. Privies, or necessary houses were often to close to the homes with a very noticeable odor on hot and/or windy days. If a family had a kitchen, all the members washed at the sink each day, without soap, rubbing the dirt off with a coarse towel. Eventually, many cold bedrooms had a basin, ewer (pitcher), cup, and cupboard chamber pot. Bed bugs and fleas covered many of the travelers’ beds. “Isaac Weld saw filthy beds swarming with bugs.” These insects followed the travelers, crawling on their clothes and skin.
People threw all of the waste outside of their windows, which included, their feces, dead cats and dogs, and also kitchen waste. Eventually, when it would rain, the rain would wash all of the rancid waste into local waters. There were “regulations against people washing clothes in or near waters used for drink, or against washing the entrails of beasts after slaughter”(Rowse 156). “…it is evident from innumerable documents how frequently they were broken” (Rowse 156). As long as people lived in small groups, isolated from each other, there were not many incidents of widespread disease. But as civilization progressed, people began clustering into cities. As the cities grew and became crowded, they also became the nesting places of water-borne, insect-borne, and skin-to-skin infectious diseases. The Elizabethans shared communal water, handled unwashed food, stepped in excrement from casual discharge of manure, and used urine for dyes, bleaches, and even treatment of wounds.
This book follows an esteemed doctor and a local clergyman who, together, are the heart of an investigation to solve the mystery of the cholera epidemic. In 1854 London was ravaged by a terrible outbreak of cholera, where within the span of mere weeks over five hundred people in the Soho district died. London, at the time, was a city of around two and a half million people, all crammed into a small area with no system for sewage removal. With overflowing cesspools, improper drainage of all the human and animal waste, and no system for guaranteed clean water, the people of London were in a bad state. They were essentially dumping all of their feces into their drinking water supply, a perfect environment for cholera to thrive.
Who would have thought the lack of sanitation could be deadly? According to the research I have done on public toilets and sanitation in India, the percentage on the lack of sanitation is incredibly high. This particular topic caught my eye because I had knowledge about the public toilets in India. For example, it was already brought to my knowledge that 53 percent of India’s population is defecating out in the open. It was very interesting and I wanted to know more about it. India is a large country and is filled with a variety of health problems like no public toilets, unsanitary facilities, and environmental sanitation issues in general.