70 The Public Health. [Jan., 



Mile End Old Town ; and 4 in Poplar ; and 1 each in other 

 parishes. In the week ending July 21st, 346 deaths from Cholera 

 occurred in London. This fatal explosion occurred chiefly in the 

 poor districts of the East End of London : 39 cases occurred 

 in Bow ; 52 in Poplar ; 43 in Limehouse ; 30 in Bethnal Green ; 

 33 in Mile End Old Town. On the 28th of July, 904 deaths 

 from Cholera were reported, and of these 811 cases occurred in 

 the six districts of Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, St. George's-in- 

 the-East, Stepney, Mile End, and Poplar. In the week ending the 

 4th of August, 1,053 persons died of Cholera, of these 916 cases 

 occurred in the East. In that week the disease had attained its 

 greatest mortality, and how it fell upon the Eastern districts may 

 he estimated by the statement of the Kegistrar-General, that whilst 

 the mortality of the month from July 7th to August 4th was in 

 the West district of London at the rate of 24 in the 1,000 per 

 annum, it was at the rate of 82 in the 1,000 for the East of 

 London ! From that week the mortality gradually declined to the 

 middle of the month of November. As the disease declined, it 

 ceased more rapidly in the parishes which had been visited in the 

 East than in the rest of London. As compared with the mortality 

 of the epidemics of 1849 and 1854, the Cholera of 1866 has 

 shown less disposition to retire than in those years. This ought 

 to be regarded as a suspicious sign, and to lead the authorities in 

 London not to relax in their sanitary efforts, lest the poison should 

 lurk about, and be ready to break out in the more favourable 

 weather of another year. 



The most interesting question connected with this outbreak of 

 Cholera in the East of London, is to what cause can its remarkable 

 localization be ascribed ? JS T ot only has Cholera not spread alarm- 

 ingly in any other great district of London, but in a large number 

 of cases which occurred in other parts of London, they were clearly 

 traced to persons having visited or come from the East End. The 

 question of the origin of this outbreak has been largely discussed 

 by the Medical Officers of Health, the Kegistrar-General, and the 

 leading medical journals in London. Before this visitation, the 

 history of the present epidemic on the Continent of Europe, and 

 the outbreak of Cholera in England at Southampton and Theidon- 

 Bois, near Epping, in Essex, in the latter part of 1865, had confirmed 

 the view originally taken by the late Dr. Snow, that drinking-water 

 was the great source of Cholera-poisoning. In his weekly return 

 on the 28th of July, the Registrar-General remarked, that the dis- 

 trict attacked was " essentially the part of London inhabited by its 

 maritime population. The canals and the basins are full of foul 

 water, and are apparently connected with the Limehouse Cut, the 

 Hackney Cut, and the River Lea. The East London Waterworks' 

 Canal draws its supply from the river at Lea Bridge, where there is 



