BRIEF HISTORY DURING THE SNOW ERA

While Vibrio cholerae had not yet been identified, Dr. Snow was convinced that the cholera-causing agent was a microbe transmitted by water. Others argued that cholera was communicated by air. Snow assembled observations to support his water theory. One such observation was of Surrey Buildings.

Two sets of buildings were side by side in the Horsleydown region of London. Households in one had many cholera deaths (Surrey Buildings) while in the other there were almost none. The two sets of buildings mentioned by Snow are not specifically identified in the 1859 map but are located east of "h" in Tho-mas Street in the lower right corner of N 24. The 1862 and 1872 maps show the exact location.

LOCATION IN 1859 REYNOLDS MAP

(Quarter Mile Section - N 24)

Site in Stanford's Map of 1862

Click here to see more details three years later

Old Ordnance Survey Map of 1872

Click here to see more details 13 years later

"In 1849 there were in Thomas Street, Horsleydown, two courts close together, consisting of a number of small houses or cottages, inhabited by poor people. The houses occupied one side of each court or alley -- the south side of Trusscott's Court, and the north side of the other, which was called Surrey Buildings, being placed back to back, with an intervening space, divided into small back areas, in which were situated the privies of both the courts, communicating with the same drain, and there was an open sewer which passed the further end of both courts. Now, in Surrey Buildings the cholera committed fearful devastation, whilst in the adjoining court there was but one fatal case, and another case that ended in recovery. In the former court, the slops of dirty water, poured down by the inhabitants into a channel in front of the houses, got into the well from which they obtained their water; this being the only difference that Mr. Grant, the Assistant-Surveyor for the Commissioners of Sewers, could find between the circumstances of the two courts, as he stated in a report that he made to the Commissioners."

Snow did not identify the specific characteristics of cases except 1 and 2. He did state, however, that all were women and children.

Snow wrote, "They [the deaths] occurred in seven out of the fourteen small houses situated in the court." He concluded:

"The two first cases on the 20th and 21st were probably caused by the cholera evacuations contained in the Thames water, as it came from the waterworks, and they may be considered to represent about the average amount of cases for the neighborhood, there having been just that number in the adjoining court, about the same time. But in a few days, when the dejections of these patients must have become mixed with the water the people drank, a number of additional cases commenced nearly together. The patients were all women and children, the men living in the court not having been attacked; they may have been out at work all day and not have drank the water, but as the surviving inhabitants nearly all left the place immediately after the above mortality occurred, I was not able to ascertain whether this was so or not."