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The 19th century
sanitary revolution arose from Snow's discovery, reinforced by the work of others: William
Farr, physician and vital statistician, the first Compiler of Abstracts in the newly
created office of the English Registrar General; the bacteriologists, Louis Pasteur and
Robert Koch; the pathologist-sanitarian Rudolph Virchow; the social reformers and early
public health specialists, Edwin Chadwick, Lemuel Shattuck, John Simon, soon battalions of
others. Human settlements were the seedbed for civilizations, but in the absence of
adequate hygiene and sanitation, they were hotbeds of pestilence and disease too. The 19th
century cities were dangerous places, rife with disease and premature death. More than a
quarter of all babies born alive were dead within a year, half were dead before they were
old enough to have children of their own. They died of gastrointestinal and respiratory
infections: cholera, typhoid, infant diarrhea, diphtheria, croup, measles, pneumonia,
tuberculosis. |
