Cholera was one of the deadliest and most alarming of the epidemics during the Victorian era, and one of its most terrifying qualities was that for the first half of the nineteenth century, no one seemed to be able to figure out how it was spread. …
A curious example of local resistance to health reforms took place in Leeds during a severe outbreak of cholera in 1849. The residents ignored "calls to clean up the area and instead went and stood outside the local alkali factory for days on end"…
How was it, one might ask, that if there was a cholera epidemic throughout the whole country, John Snow was able to stop the epidemic in Soho merely by limiting it to a single pump? Another question: Most people didn't drink directly from the Thames.…