People of means were escaping to the country. The New York Evening Post reported, "The roads, in all directions, were lined with well-filled stage-coaches, livery coaches, private vehicles and equestrians, all panic-struck, fleeing the city, as we may suppose the inhabitants of Pompeii fled when the red lava showered down upon their houses."
An assistant to the painter Asher B. Durand described the scene near the center of the outbreak. "There is no business doing here if I except that done by Cholera, Doctors, Undertakers, Coffinmakers, &c," he wrote. "Our bustling city now wears a most gloomy & desolate aspect -- one may take a walk up & down Broadway & scarce meet a soul."
The epidemic left 3,515 dead out of a population of 250,000. (The equivalent death toll in today's city of eight million would exceed 100,000.)
An assistant to the painter Asher B. Durand described the scene near the center of the outbreak. "There is no business doing here if I except that done by Cholera, Doctors, Undertakers, Coffinmakers, &c," he wrote. "Our bustling city now wears a most gloomy & desolate aspect -- one may take a walk up & down Broadway & scarce meet a soul."
The epidemic left 3,515 dead out of a population of 250,000. (The equivalent death toll in today's city of eight million would exceed 100,000.)
[ ... ]
Science and medicine advanced more slowly in the 19th century. It was 1883 before the bacterium Vibrio cholerae was discovered to be the agent causing the gastrointestinal disease. But a turning point in prevention came in 1854, when a London physician, Dr. John Snow, established the connection between contaminated water & cholera.
Dr. Snow tested the idea by plotting cholera cases on a map of Soho. This showed that most of the victims drew their water from a public pump on Broad (now Broadwick) Street. An infected baby's diapers had been dumped into a cesspool near the well. A recent book, "Ghost Map," by Steven Johnson, recounts the discovery.
The cholera research was an early application of mapping in medical investigations, a technique that has become widespread now that computers facilitate the display and analysis of such data. Historians of medicine credit Dr. Snow with advancing the modern germ theory of disease & laying the foundations of scientific epidemiology.
The cholera menace thus prompted cities to begin cleaning up their fouled nests. This came too late for victims of the 1832 epidemic in New York, or one that followed in 1849. By then, the city's population had doubled, to 500,000, and deaths by cholera rose to 5,071.
Dr. Snow tested the idea by plotting cholera cases on a map of Soho. This showed that most of the victims drew their water from a public pump on Broad (now Broadwick) Street. An infected baby's diapers had been dumped into a cesspool near the well. A recent book, "Ghost Map," by Steven Johnson, recounts the discovery.
The cholera research was an early application of mapping in medical investigations, a technique that has become widespread now that computers facilitate the display and analysis of such data. Historians of medicine credit Dr. Snow with advancing the modern germ theory of disease & laying the foundations of scientific epidemiology.
The cholera menace thus prompted cities to begin cleaning up their fouled nests. This came too late for victims of the 1832 epidemic in New York, or one that followed in 1849. By then, the city's population had doubled, to 500,000, and deaths by cholera rose to 5,071.
No comments:
Post a Comment