Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
either areas outside the wall in the inner suburbs, or the outer edges (Harding
2012
).
As their densities increased with more poor housing after the Industrial Revolution
because of low construction standards, these areas had even higher death rates.
A major change came in the mid nineteenth century when dramatic spikes in
mortality, especially associated with severe cholera outbreaks, focused attention on
the problem. In Britain, Edwin Chadwick's pioneering report on the sanitation of
cities (1843) showed how mortality varied with the physical and social composition
of residential areas. Social commentators (Engels
1844
; Mayhew et al.
1851-1862
)
as well as novelists such as Dickens (Tomalin
2011
), described in horrific detail the
squalid conditions in which the poorest lived, worked and died in London and other
big cities, where many infectious diseases were rampant (Harding
2012
, p. 40). But
it was the maps of Dr John Snow, showing higher cholera deaths around a Soho well
in London in 1854, and his demonstration of their link with its polluted water that
gradually led to the acceptance that wells or rivers containing water contaminated
by faecal matter and rubbish led to the growth of what we now know as the bacteria
that cause cholera (Johnston
2006
; Frerichs n.d.). The eventual result, although it
took time, was to replace the historic belief that bad air caused disease, with one
that stressed the role of contaminated water, which eventually led to the policies that
built sanitary systems and the new specialism of epidemiology, of which Snow is
often considered the originator.
Although there was a great deal of dissention in the early nineteenth century
about the causes of death rate increases in the big cities, it is now clear that they
came from a combination of eight, essentially built-environment problems. The first
was the
overcrowding
in many houses and areas which increased the risk of con-
tagion from infectious communicable diseases. The second was that urban growth
overwhelmed the local ability to provide fresh water supplies, or to remove fae-
cal material, not only from humans but from the horses that were the main form
of transport and fouled the main streets, and the many animals, pigs, cows and
chickens kept for fresh food. This led to well-water
contamination
, as well as piles
of waste, including human faeces, that resulted in outbreaks of diseases such as
typhoid and cholera in what was literally a stinking environment. A third problem
came from the
lack of cleanliness
and hygiene of many in the population, making
the spread of disease easier in such overcrowded areas. A fourth lay in the
limited
building regulations,
as well as their adequate enforcement, either in sites chosen or
construction standards. The former issue led to structures being built on wet marshy
ground, or near polluted streams. The latter led to damp, cold buildings with little
warmth, small rooms and with few windows. Buildings in poor areas were often
built in courts to increase density, creating areas rarely penetrated by the sun, while
cellars were often used as dwellings. These conditions increased the risk of respira-
tory diseases and also rickets because of an absence of sunlight, as well as increas-
ing the danger from fires.
A fifth problem came from
pollution
. This was not just the stink from faecal
and other rotting matter in urban places, but from the noxious fumes and toxic
waste products produced by the many industrial plants that were mixed up with resi-
dences, and especially from the typical coal-fuelled household fires that may have
