Talk:East London Waterworks Company
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I would make the point that this article is of much greater than low importance and entirely (probably deliberately)leaves out a very significant event in the history of public health - namely this company's shameful part in the cholera epidemic of 1866. I would therefore propose to add a substantial addition along the lines of the following paragraphs. Note that I have included only a general attribution at the end... this would obviously not suffice in a live entry.
Over four thousand persons died between July and November of that year because, contrary to the law, this company mixed raw, unfiltered water stored in uncovered reservoirs at Old Ford with the relatively safe, filtered water it obtained from the River Lea. In the face of repeated accusations the operators of the company publically denied breaching the law on several occasions, and when faced with proof of their transgression, maintained that cholera was not transmitted by water in any case.
One good thing did come of this tragedy; after this episode it was generally agreed in the U.K.that John Snow and William Budd had been correct about waterborne disease and serious efforts began to be made to clean up the country's water supply. The 1866 epidemic was the last widespread cholera outbreak in Britain; the 1873 epidemic did not take root in that country and cholera has never returned since.
Most information taken from the following which cites, in turn, many original documents:
The Final Catastrophe, W. Luckin,History and Social Studies of Science, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, Sussex. Published in Medical History, 1977, 21: 3242.