Cholera & Disease in Industrial Britain (OCR GCSE History B (Schools History Project)): Revision Note

Summary

Britain's early industrial cities were dirty and deadly places. The average life expectancy at birth in all major cities was fewer than 30 years.

In 1831, cities became more deadly when cholera arrived in Britain. A lack of scientific understanding and filthy living conditions meant that cholera and several other killer diseases thrived in all of Britain's major cities.

What is cholera?

• The first cases of cholera in Britain were reported in 1831

  • It killed people suddenly and without warning

  • Its victims suffered from violent diarrhoea that led to severe dehydration

    • This caused organ failure and then death

  • Some people died within hours of contracting it

• By 1832, 31,000 people in Britain had died from cholera

  • An outbreak in 1848 killed 65,000 people

  • There were further outbreaks in 1853 and 1866

Responses to cholera epidemics

• People had no knowledge or understanding of how cholera spread in the early and mid 1800s

• Much like the plague, many people believed cholera was caused by God

  • The government named a day in March 1831 as a day of fasting

    • This was to try and please God and stop the spread of the disease

  • Patent medicines were sold that promised to cure cholera and a range of other conditions

    • These were completely ineffective

    • They played on people's fear and desperation

  • The most commonly held belief was that it was spread through miasmas (bad smells)

  • Barrels of tar were burned in the streets of Exeter to purify the air

    • Outbreaks seemed to occur in filthy and stinking conditions, so the miasma theory made sense to most people

Other diseases in industrial Britain

• Cholera may have been the most feared disease in Britain's industrial cities

• It was not the only disease or the biggest kiler

Typhus

• Spread by body lice

• Caused diarrhoea, fever and death

Typhoid

• Spread by particles of excrement in food and water

• Caused diarrhoea, fever and death

Diptheria

• Spread through close contact with an infected person

• Infection led to swollen glands and swollen throat making breathing and swallowing difficult

Influenza

• Spread through close contact with an infected person

• Led to fever which sometimes resulted in death

Tuberculosis (TB)

• Spread by close contact with an infected person

• Caused coughing, pain, fever, night sweats and weight loss

• TB killed more people than any other disease