victorian england

As the western world expand many people became ill with cholera because of overcrowding in living space, in some cities overcrowding often involved quarters below street level, where water was constantly seeping in the living area. In many Latin and African country the cholera virus is more common because of poor hygiene, poor sanitation and lack of education on public health. In an outbreak, the source of the contamination is usually the feces of an infected person that contaminates water or food. The disease can spread like wild fire in areas with poor treatment of sewage and drinking water. In Europe in the 1800s many people became infected with cholera because there water drawn from the nearby streams and rive... ... middle of paper ... ...ury, one that moreover focused attention on the environmental evils of early industrial urbanization but it has been used to divert the attention from the carriers of the disease, the immigrants who travel to the U.S. daily.

The nineteenth century was a time of economic, technologic, and population growth. These changes created problems in everyone’s daily lives. Two examples of things that affected the lives of many were disease and sanitation. Disease and sanitation led to high mortality rates in Nineteenth- Century England. This relates to North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell as it takes place during nineteenth century England and multiple characters died presumably due to disease.

"Classes and the Masses in Victorian England." History Today. History Today, n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.

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.

"A large pollution study revealed that when smog increases in the Los Angeles Basin area, there is a big jump in the number of people hospitalized for lung and heart problems (Dreher 1998)." The effects of air pollution can be seen even below the levels that are indicated by air quality standards, since people respond differently to poor air quality. "Concentrations of harmful chemicals in the air have been proven to inflame and destroy lung tissue and weaken the lung defenses. Germs and dirt are normally trapped in the mucus in our air passages and removed by tiny hairs called cilia before entering our lungs. Polluting chemicals can paralyze the tiny cilia, allowing germs to build up in mucus or leave our body poorly protected against disease (Dreher 1998)."

Web. 21, May 2014. < www.cottontimes.co.uk/housingo.htm. > Trevelyan, George. “The Transition from Agriculture to Industry” Victorian England.

24 Nov. 2013. Landow, George "Victorian Occupations: Life and Labor in the Victorian Period." Victorian Web. 24 Nov. 2013. Sullivan, Dick.

2001. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. .

The impact cholera has had on the world is enormous. Cholera has caused immense amount of human suffering and economic/social loss since its beginning. But, as time goes on, discoveries are made and ideas are created on treatments that save many lives and some places are now cholera free. In those regions, Cholera is a thing of the past; while in other parts of the world, it is very much still a threatening disease of the present and future. ______________________________________________________________________________ Cholera, the massive watery diarrhea disease, has struck the earth with its angry fists since the beginnings of civilization.

Tuberculosis and typhus fever were painful, contagious, and long-lasting epidemics that killed people of all classes. Naturally, the lower classes suffered the most. The upper classes reaped the financial benefits from this new urban society, while the working classes were subjected to filthy, disease-ridden atmosphere. The impoverished have always been the disadvantaged, but in 19th century England, they paid with their lives.