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 Xin-She Yang

Introduction to
Algorithms for Data Mining
and Machine Learning
Introduction to Algorithms for Data Mining and
Machine Learning
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction to
Algorithms for Data
Mining and Machine
Learning

Xin-She Yang
Middlesex University
School of Science and Technology
London, United Kingdom
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier
125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AS, United Kingdom
525 B Street, Suite 1650, San Diego, CA 92101, United States
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the
Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center
and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other
than as may be noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our
understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using
any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods
they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a
professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability
for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or
from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-12-817216-2

For information on all Academic Press publications

visit our website at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: Candice Janco

Acquisition Editor: J. Scott Bentley
Editorial Project Manager: Michael Lutz
Production Project Manager: Nilesh Kumar Shah
Designer: Miles Hitchen
Typeset by VTeX
Contents

About the author ix

Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii

1 Introduction to optimization 1
1.1 Algorithms 1
1.1.1 Essence of an algorithm 1
1.1.2 Issues with algorithms 3
1.1.3 Types of algorithms 3
1.2 Optimization 4
1.2.1 A simple example 4
1.2.2 General formulation of optimization 7
1.2.3 Feasible solution 9
1.2.4 Optimality criteria 10
1.3 Unconstrained optimization 10
1.3.1 Univariate functions 11
1.3.2 Multivariate functions 12
1.4 Nonlinear constrained optimization 14
1.4.1 Penalty method 15
1.4.2 Lagrange multipliers 16
1.4.3 Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions 17
1.5 Notes on software 18

2 Mathematical foundations 19
2.1 Convexity 20
2.1.1 Linear and affine functions 20
2.1.2 Convex functions 21
2.1.3 Mathematical operations on convex functions 22
2.2 Computational complexity 22
2.2.1 Time and space complexity 24
2.2.2 Complexity of algorithms 25
2.3 Norms and regularization 26
2.3.1 Norms 26
2.3.2 Regularization 28
2.4 Probability distributions 29
2.4.1 Random variables 29
2.4.2 Probability distributions 30
vi Contents

2.4.3 Conditional probability and Bayesian rule 32

2.4.4 Gaussian process 34
2.5 Bayesian network and Markov models 35
2.6 Monte Carlo sampling 36
2.6.1 Markov chain Monte Carlo 37
2.6.2 Metropolis–Hastings algorithm 37
2.6.3 Gibbs sampler 39
2.7 Entropy, cross entropy, and KL divergence 39
2.7.1 Entropy and cross entropy 39
2.7.2 DL divergence 40
2.8 Fuzzy rules 41
2.9 Data mining and machine learning 42
2.9.1 Data mining 42
2.9.2 Machine learning 42
2.10 Notes on software 42

3 Optimization algorithms 45
3.1 Gradient-based methods 45
3.1.1 Newton’s method 45
3.1.2 Newton’s method for multivariate functions 47
3.1.3 Line search 48
3.2 Variants of gradient-based methods 49
3.2.1 Stochastic gradient descent 50
3.2.2 Subgradient method 51
3.2.3 Conjugate gradient method 52
3.3 Optimizers in deep learning 53
3.4 Gradient-free methods 56
3.5 Evolutionary algorithms and swarm intelligence 58
3.5.1 Genetic algorithm 58
3.5.2 Differential evolution 60
3.5.3 Particle swarm optimization 61
3.5.4 Bat algorithm 61
3.5.5 Firefly algorithm 62
3.5.6 Cuckoo search 62
3.5.7 Flower pollination algorithm 63
3.6 Notes on software 64

4 Data fitting and regression 67

4.1 Sample mean and variance 67
4.2 Regression analysis 69
4.2.1 Maximum likelihood 69
4.2.2 Liner regression 70
4.2.3 Linearization 75
4.2.4 Generalized linear regression 77
4.2.5 Goodness of fit 80
Contents vii

4.3 Nonlinear least squares 81

4.3.1 Gauss–Newton algorithm 82
4.3.2 Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm 85
4.3.3 Weighted least squares 85
4.4 Overfitting and information criteria 86
4.5 Regularization and Lasso method 88
4.6 Notes on software 90

5 Logistic regression, PCA, LDA, and ICA 91

5.1 Logistic regression 91
5.2 Softmax regression 96
5.3 Principal component analysis 96
5.4 Linear discriminant analysis 101
5.5 Singular value decomposition 104
5.6 Independent component analysis 105
5.7 Notes on software 108

6 Data mining techniques 109

6.1 Introduction 110
6.1.1 Types of data 110
6.1.2 Distance metric 110
6.2 Hierarchy clustering 111
6.3 k-Nearest-neighbor algorithm 112
6.4 k-Means algorithm 113
6.5 Decision trees and random forests 115
6.5.1 Decision tree algorithm 115
6.5.2 ID3 algorithm and C4.5 classifier 116
6.5.3 Random forest 120
6.6 Bayesian classifiers 121
6.6.1 Naive Bayesian classifier 121
6.6.2 Bayesian networks 123
6.7 Data mining for big data 124
6.7.1 Characteristics of big data 124
6.7.2 Statistical nature of big data 125
6.7.3 Mining big data 125
6.8 Notes on software 127

7 Support vector machine and regression 129

7.1 Statistical learning theory 129
7.2 Linear support vector machine 130
7.3 Kernel functions and nonlinear SVM 133
7.4 Support vector regression 135
7.5 Notes on software 137
viii Contents

8 Neural networks and deep learning 139

8.1 Learning 139
8.2 Artificial neural networks 140
8.2.1 Neuron models 140
8.2.2 Activation models 141
8.2.3 Artificial neural networks 143
8.3 Back propagation algorithm 146
8.4 Loss functions in ANN 147
8.5 Optimizers and choice of optimizers 149
8.6 Network architecture 149
8.7 Deep learning 151
8.7.1 Convolutional neural networks 151
8.7.2 Restricted Boltzmann machine 157
8.7.3 Deep neural nets 158
8.7.4 Trends in deep learning 159
8.8 Tuning of hyperparameters 160
8.9 Notes on software 161

Bibliography 163

Index 171
About the author

Xin-She Yang obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Ox-
ford. He then worked at Cambridge University and National Physical Laboratory (UK)
as a Senior Research Scientist. Now he is Reader at Middlesex University London, and
an elected Bye-Fellow at Cambridge University.
He is also the IEEE Computer Intelligence Society (CIS) Chair for the Task Force
on Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management, Director of the International
Consortium for Optimization and Modelling in Science and Industry (iCOMSI), and
an Editor of Springer’s Book Series Springer Tracts in Nature-Inspired Computing
(STNIC).
With more than 20 years of research and teaching experience, he has authored
10 books and edited more than 15 books. He published more than 200 research pa-
pers in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings with more
than 36 800 citations. He has been on the prestigious lists of Clarivate Analytics and
Web of Science highly cited researchers in 2016, 2017, and 2018. He serves on the
Editorial Boards of many international journals including International Journal of
Bio-Inspired Computation, Elsevier’s Journal of Computational Science (JoCS), In-
ternational Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, and International
Journal of Computer Mathematics. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the International
Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Optimisation.
This page intentionally left blank
Preface

Both data mining and machine learning are becoming popular subjects for university
courses and industrial applications. This popularity is partly driven by the Internet and
social media because they generate a huge amount of data every day, and the under-
standing of such big data requires sophisticated data mining techniques. In addition,
many applications such as facial recognition and robotics have extensively used ma-
chine learning algorithms, leading to the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence.
From a more general perspective, both data mining and machine learning are closely
related to optimization. After all, in many applications, we have to minimize costs,
errors, energy consumption, and environment impact and to maximize sustainabil-
ity, productivity, and efficiency. Many problems in data mining and machine learning
are usually formulated as optimization problems so that they can be solved by opti-
mization algorithms. Therefore, optimization techniques are closely related to many
techniques in data mining and machine learning.
Courses on data mining, machine learning, and optimization are often compulsory
for students, studying computer science, management science, engineering design, op-
erations research, data science, finance, and economics. All students have to develop
a certain level of data modeling skills so that they can process and interpret data for
classification, clustering, curve-fitting, and predictions. They should also be familiar
with machine learning techniques that are closely related to data mining so as to carry
out problem solving in many real-world applications. This book provides an introduc-
tion to all the major topics for such courses, covering the essential ideas of all key
algorithms and techniques for data mining, machine learning, and optimization.
Though there are over a dozen good books on such topics, most of these books are
either too specialized with specific readership or too lengthy (often over 500 pages).
This book fills in the gap with a compact and concise approach by focusing on the key
concepts, algorithms, and techniques at an introductory level. The main approach of
this book is informal, theorem-free, and practical. By using an informal approach all
fundamental topics required for data mining and machine learning are covered, and
the readers can gain such basic knowledge of all important algorithms with a focus
on their key ideas, without worrying about any tedious, rigorous mathematical proofs.
In addition, the practical approach provides about 30 worked examples in this book
so that the readers can see how each step of the algorithms and techniques works.
Thus, the readers can build their understanding and confidence gradually and in a
step-by-step manner. Furthermore, with the minimal requirements of basic high school
mathematics and some basic calculus, such an informal and practical style can also
enable the readers to learn the contents by self-study and at their own pace.
This book is suitable for undergraduates and graduates to rapidly develop all the
fundamental knowledge of data mining, machine learning, and optimization. It can
xii Preface

also be used by students and researchers as a reference to review and refresh their
knowledge in data mining, machine learning, optimization, computer science, and data
science.

Xin-She Yang
January 2019 in London
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all my students and colleagues who have given valuable feedback
and comments on some of the contents and examples of this book. I also would like to
thank my editors, J. Scott Bentley and Michael Lutz, and the staff at Elsevier for their
professionalism. Last but not least, I thank my family for all the help and support.

Xin-She Yang
January 2019
This page intentionally left blank
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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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. The well in question was
supplied from the pipes of the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks,
and was covered in on a level with the adjoining ground; and the
inhabitants obtained the water by a pump placed over the well. The
channel mentioned above commenced close by the pump. Owing to
something being out of order, the water had for some time
occasionally burst out at the top of the well, and overflowed into the
gutter or channel, afterwards flowing back again mixed with the
impurities; and crevices were left in the ground or pavement,
allowing part of the contents of the gutter to flow at all times into the
well; and when it was afterwards emptied, a large quantity of black
and highly offensive deposit was found.
The first case of cholera in this court occurred on July 20th, in a
little girl, who had been labouring under diarrhœa for four days. This
case ended favourably. On the 21st July, the next day, an elderly
female was attacked with the disease, and was in a state of collapse at
ten o’clock the same night. This patient partially recovered, but died
of some consecutive affection on August 1. Mr. Vinen, of Tooley
Street, who attended these cases, states that the evacuations were
passed into the beds, and that the water in which the foul linen was
washed would inevitably be emptied into the channel mentioned
above. Mr. Russell, of Thornton Street, Horsleydown, who attended
many of the subsequent cases in the court, and who, along with
another medical gentleman, was the first to call the attention of the
authorities to the state of the well, says that such water was
invariably emptied there, and the people admit the circumstance.
About a week after the above two cases commenced, a number of
patients were taken ill nearly together: four on Saturday, July 28th,
seven or eight on the 29th, and several on the day following. The
deaths in the cases that were fatal took place as follows:—one on the
29th, four on the 30th, and one on the 31st July; two on August 1st,
and one on August the 2nd, 5th, and 10th respectively, making
eleven in all. They occurred in seven out of the fourteen small houses
situated in the court.
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 neighbourhood, 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.
In Albion Terrace, Wandsworth Road, there was an extraordinary
mortality from cholera in 1849, which was the more striking as there
were no other cases at the time in the immediate neighbourhood; the
houses opposite to, behind, and in the same line, at each end of those
in which the disease prevailed, having been free from it. The row of
houses in which the cholera prevailed to an extent probably at that
time quite unprecedented in this country, constituted the genteel
suburban dwellings of a number of professional and tradespeople,
and are most of them detached a few feet from each other. They were
supplied with water on the same plan. In this instance the water got
contaminated by the contents of the house-drains and cesspools. The
cholera extended to nearly all the houses in which the water was thus
tainted, and to no others.
THE OUTBREAK These houses were numbered from 1 to
OF CHOLERA AT 17, in Albion Terrace, and were supplied
ALBION with water from a copious spring in the
TERRACE.
road in front of the terrace, the water of
which was conducted, by a brick barrel-drain between Nos. 7 and 8,
to the back of the houses, and then flowed right and left, to supply
tanks in the ground behind each house, the tanks being made of
brickwork and cement, covered with a flat stone, and connected with
each other by stoneware pipes six inches in diameter. A leaden pipe
conveyed water from each tank to a pump situated in the back
kitchen. There was a cesspool behind each house, under the privy,
and situated four feet from the water-tank. The ground was opened
behind the houses No. 1 and No. 7, and the drains examined under
the superintendence of Mr. Grant, the Assistant-Surveyor to the
Commissioners of Sewers. The cesspools at both these places were
quite full, and the overflow-drain from that at No. 1 choked up. At
this house the respective levels of the cesspool and the water-tank
were measured, and the top of the overflow-drain from the cesspool
was found to be fifteen inches above the top of the tank, and the
intervening ground was very wet. The overflow-drain mentioned
above had no bottom, or one so soft that it could be penetrated with
a stick; and it crossed, at right angles, above the earthenware pipe of
the water-tank, the joints of which were leaky, and allowed the water
to escape. Behind No. 7, Mr. Grant found a pipe for bringing surplus
water from the tanks, communicating with a drain from the cesspool;
and he found a flat brick drain laid over the barrel-drain before
mentioned, which brought the water from the spring. It appears,
from a plan of the property, that this drain, which was continued in a
direction towards the sewer in Battersea Fields, brought surface-
drainage from the road, and received the drains from the cesspools,
the house-drains from the sinks in the back kitchens, and the surplus
water, or some of it, from the tanks. There was every reason to
believe that this drain was stopped up, but that was not ascertained:
at all events it was unable to convey the water flowing into it during
the storm on July 26th, as it burst near the house No. 8, and
inundated the lower premises of that and the adjoining house, No. 9,
with fœtid water; and it was from this time that the water, which had
occasionally been complained of before, was found by most of the
people in these seventeen houses to be more or less impure or
disagreeable. The water broke out of the drain again at No. 8, and
overflowed the kitchens, during a heavy rain on August 2nd. It
should be particularly remarked, that the tanks were placed on the
same level, so that pumping from one would draw water from the
others, and that any impurity getting into one tank would
consequently be imparted to the rest.
 The first case of cholera occurred at No. 13, on July 28th (two days
after the bursting of the drain), in a lady who had had premonitory
symptoms for three or four days. It was fatal in fourteen hours. There
was an accumulation of rubbish in the cellar of this house, which was
said to be offensive by the person who removed it; but the proprietor
of the house denied this. A lady at No. 8 was attacked with choleraic
diarrhœa on July 30th: she recovered. On August 1st, a lady, aged
eighty-one, at No. 6, who had had some diarrhœa eight or ten days
before, which had yielded to her own treatment, was attacked with
cholera: she died on the 4th with congested brain. Diarrhœa
commenced on August 1st in a lady aged 60, at No. 3; collapse took
place on the 5th, and death on the 6th. On August 3rd, there were
three or four cases, in different parts of the row of houses, and two of
them terminated fatally on the same day. The attacks were numerous
during the following three or four days, and after that time they
diminished in number. More than half the inhabitants of the part of
the terrace in which the cholera prevailed, were attacked with it, and
upwards of half the cases were fatal. The deaths occurred as follows;
but as some of the patients lingered a few days, and died in the
consecutive fever, the deaths are less closely grouped than the
seizures. There was one death on July 28th, two on August 3rd, four
on the 4th, two on the 6th, two on the 7th, four on the 8th, three on
the 9th, one on the 11th, and one on the 13th. These make twenty
fatal cases; and there were four or five deaths besides amongst those
who were attacked after flying from the place.
The fatal cases were distributed over ten out of the seventeen
houses; and Mr. Mimpriss of Wandsworth Road, who attended many
of the cases, and to whose kindness I am indebted for several of these
particulars, stated that cases occurred in the other seven houses,
with the exception of one or two that were empty, or nearly so. There
were five deaths in the house No. 6; and one of a gentleman the day
after he left it, and went to Hampstead Heath. The entire household,
consisting of seven individuals, had the cholera, and six of them died.
There is no data for showing how the disease was communicated
to the first patient, at No. 13, on July 28th; but it was two or three
days afterwards, when the evacuations from this patient must have
entered the drains having a communication with the water supplied
to all the houses, that other persons were attacked, and in two days
more the disease prevailed to an alarming extent.
I had an opportunity of examining some of the water removed by
Mr. Grant from the tanks behind the houses No. 1 and No. 7, and also
some of the deposit which lay in the tanks to the depth of from six to
nine inches. The water was offensive, and the deposit possessed the
odour of privy soil very distinctly. I found in it various substances
which had passed through the alimentary canal, having escaped
digestion, as the stones and husks of currants and grapes, and
portions of the thin epidermis of other fruits and vegetables.
Many of the patients attributed their illness to the water. This is
here mentioned to show that they had drank of it, and at the same
time found that it was impure. As explaining how persons might
drink of such water before finding out its impurity, it may be stated
that the grosser part of the material from drains and cesspools has a
tendency, when mixed with water, to settle rapidly to the bottom.
The only houses supplied with the same water, after passing the
tanks in Albion Terrace, were four in Albion Street; but three of these
had been empty for months, and the fourth was inhabited by a
gentleman who always suspected the water, and would not drink it.
There were two or three persons attacked with cholera amongst
those who came to nurse the patients after the water was
condemned, and who, consequently, did not drink it; but these
persons were liable, in waiting on the patient, to get a small portion
of the evacuations into the stomach in the way first pointed out; and
there might be food in the houses, previously prepared with the
tainted water. It is not here implied that every one of the cases in
Albion Terrace was communicated by the water, but that far the
greater portion of them were; that, in short, it was the circumstance
of the cholera evacuations getting into the water, which caused the
disease to spread so much beyond its ordinary extent.
IRRUPTIONS OF The mortality in Albion Terrace was
CHOLERA IN attributed by Dr. Milroy, in a published
ROTHERHITHE. report to the General Board of Health,
chiefly to three causes: first, to an open sewer in Battersea Fields,
which is four hundred feet to the north of the terrace, and from
which the inhabitants perceived a disagreeable odour when the wind
was in certain directions; secondly, to a disagreeable odour from the
sinks in the back kitchens of the houses, which was worse after the
storm of July 26; and lastly, to the accumulation in the house No. 13,
before alluded to. With respect to the open sewer, there are several
streets and lines of houses as much exposed to any emanations there
might be from it, as those in which the cholera prevailed; and yet
they were quite free from the malady, as were also nineteen houses
situated between the sewer and Albion Terrace. As regards the bad
smells from the sinks in the kitchen, their existence is of such every
day and almost universal prevalence, that they do not help to explain
an irruption of cholera like that under consideration; indeed,
offensive odours were created in thousands of houses in London by
the same storm of rain on July 26th; and the two houses in which the
offensive smell was greatest, viz. Nos. 8 and 9—those which were
flooded with the contents of the drain—were less severely visited
with cholera than the rest; the inhabitants having only had diarrhœa,
or mild attacks of cholera. The accumulation in the house No. 13
could not affect the houses at a distance from it. It remains evident
then, that the only special and peculiar cause connected with the
great calamity which befel the inhabitants of these houses, was the
state of the water, which was followed by the cholera in almost every
house to which it extended, whilst all the surrounding houses were
quite free from the disease. Indeed, the General Board of Health
attributed the mortality at this place to the contamination of the
water, in a manifesto which they published not long after Dr.
Milroy’s report.[6]
Dr. Lloyd mentioned some instances of the effects of impure water
at the South London Medical Society, on August 30th, 1849.[7] In
Silver Street, Rotherhithe, there were eighty cases, and thirty-eight
deaths, in the course of a fortnight early in July of that year, at a time
when there was very little cholera in any other part of Rotherhithe.
The contents of all the privies in this street ran into a drain which
had once had a communication with the Thames; and the people got
their supply of water from a well situated very near the end of the
drain, with the contents of which the water got contaminated. Dr.
Lloyd informed me that the fetid water from the drain could be seen
dribbling through the side of the well, above the surface of the water.
Amongst other sanitary measures recommended by Dr. Lloyd was
the filling up of the well; and the cholera ceased in Silver Street as
soon as the people gave over using the water. Another instance
alluded to by Dr. Lloyd, was Charlotte Place, in Rotherhithe,
consisting of seven houses, the inhabitants of which, excepting those
of one house, obtained their water from a ditch communicating with
the Thames, and receiving the contents of the privies of all the seven
houses. In these houses there were twenty-five cases of cholera, and
fourteen deaths; one of the houses had a pump railed off, to which
the inhabitants of the other houses had no access, and there was but
one case in that house.
The following instance, as well as some others of a similar kind, is
related in the “Report of the General Board of Health on the Cholera
of 1848 and 1849.”
“In Manchester, a sudden and violent outbreak of cholera occurred
in Hope Street, Salford. The inhabitants used water from a particular
pump-well. This well had been repaired, and a sewer which passes
within nine inches of the edge of it became accidentally stopped up,
and leaked into the well. The inhabitants of thirty houses used the
water from this well; among them there occurred nineteen cases of
diarrhœa, twenty-six cases of cholera, and twenty-five deaths. The
inhabitants of sixty houses in the same immediate neighbourhood
used other water; among these there occurred eleven cases of
diarrhœa, but not a single case of cholera, nor one death. It is
remarkable, that, in this instance, out of the twenty-six persons
attacked with cholera, the whole perished except one.”—Page 62.
THE OUTBREAK Dr. Thomas King Chambers informed me,
OF CHOLERA AT that at Ilford, in Essex, in the summer of
NEWBURN, ON 1849, the cholera prevailed very severely in
THE TYNE.
a row of houses a little way from the main
part of the town. It had visited every house in the row but one. The
refuse which overflowed from the privies and a pigsty could be seen
running into the well over the surface of the ground, and the water
was very fetid; yet it was used by the people in all the houses except
that which had escaped cholera. That house was inhabited by a
woman who took linen to wash, and she, finding that the water gave
the linen an offensive smell, paid a person to fetch water for her from
the pump in the town, and this water she used for culinary purposes,
as well as for washing.
The following circumstance was related to me, at the time it
occurred, by a gentleman well acquainted with all the particulars.
The drainage from the cesspools found its way into the well attached
to some houses at Locksbrook, near Bath, and the cholera making its
appearance there in the autumn of 1849, became very fatal. The
people complained of the water to the gentleman belonging to the
property, who lived at Weston, in Bath, and he sent a surveyor, who
reported that nothing was the matter. The tenants still complaining,
the owner went himself, and on looking at the water and smelling it,
he said that he could perceive nothing the matter with it. He was
asked if he would taste it, and he drank a glass of it. This occurred on
a Wednesday; he went home, was taken ill with the cholera, and died
on the Saturday following, there being no cholera in his own
neighbourhood at the time.
There is no spot in this country in which the cholera was more
fatal during the epidemic of 1832 than the village of Newburn, near
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We are informed, in an excellent paper on the
subject by Dr. David Craigie,[8] that exactly one-tenth of the
population died. The number of the inhabitants was five hundred
and fifty; of these, three hundred and twenty suffered from the
epidemic, either in the form of diarrhœa or the more confirmed
disease, and the deaths amounted to fifty-five. Being aware of this
mortality, I wrote, about the beginning of the year 1849, to a friend
in Newcastle—Dr. Embleton—to make inquiries respecting the water
used at Newburn, and he kindly procured me some information from
the Rev. John Reed, of Newburn Vicarage, which I received in
February, as well as an answer from Mr. Davison, surgeon, of
Newburn, to whom I had written in the meantime. I learnt from
these communications that the people were supplied with water in
1832, as they still were, from three wells, two of which were very little
used, and that the water in the third well was derived from the
workings of an old coal-mine near the village. The water of this well,
as I was informed, although generally good when first drawn,
became putrid after being kept two days. It was considered that the
evacuations of the people could not get into any of the wells; but the
vicar thought that the water of a little brook which runs past the
village, and falls into the Tyne immediately afterwards, might find its
way into that well which is chiefly resorted to. Putrefaction, on being
kept a day or two, is so much the character of water containing
animal matter, that, after receiving confirmation of my views
respecting the communication of cholera by water from many other
places, I wrote to Mr. Davison again on the subject, and he kindly
took a great deal of trouble to investigate the matter further. He
informed me that the brook was principally formed by water which
was constantly pumped from coal-pits in the neighbourhood. About
half a mile before reaching Newburn it received the refuse of a small
village, and between that village and Newburn it ran through a privy
used by the workmen of a steel factory. In Newburn this brook
received the contents of the open drains or gutters from the houses.
The drain which conveyed water from a coal mine or drift not worked
for a great number of years, to the well mentioned above, passed
underneath the brook at one part of its course, and from that point
ran alongside of the brook to the well,—a distance of about three
hundred yards. Mr. Davison said that it was disputed whether there
was any communication between the drain and the brook, but that it
was highly probable that there might be; and that an occurrence
which took place a few months previously seemed to prove that there
was. Some gas-water from the steel manufactory mentioned above
got by accident into the brook, and some of the people affirmed that
the water in the well was strongly impregnated with it.
The first case of cholera in Newburn was that of a young man
living close to the brook, about a hundred yards above the place at
which it passes the well. He was taken ill on the 29th December,
1831, and died, in the stage of consecutive fever, on January 4th,
1832. There were some cases of diarrhœa in the village, but no new
cases of cholera till the night of January the 9th, during which night
and the following morning thirteen persons were taken ill. During
the night of the 12th four persons were attacked; by the 15th there
were fourteen new cases, and on this day the late vicar died—the Rev.
John Edmonston. By the next day at noon there were at least fifty
new cases. A few days after this the disease began to subside, and by
the 2nd of February had almost disappeared. As several days elapsed
between the first case of cholera and the great outbreak, it is
probable that the water in which the soiled linen must have been
washed, and which would necessarily run into the brook, was the
means of communicating the disease to the thirteen persons taken ill
on the night between the 9th and 10th of January; unless, indeed, the
intermediate cases of diarrhœa could transmit the disease.
 The following passage is from the report of Mr. Cruikshanks on the
outbreak of cholera in 1814, previously alluded to as occurring in a
battalion on its march from Jaulnah to Trichinopoly.
“It was the belief of the natives, strenuously fostered and
inculcated by their spiritual guides, that the epidemic was the
immediate consequence of the wrath of Heaven, outraged and
insulted by the pollution of certain sacred tanks, situated at the
village of Cunnatore, in which sepoys of low caste and camp
followers had indiscriminately bathed. Such we may not regard as
affording a very satisfactory solution of the difficulty; yet it leads, I
think, directly to the true point of inquiry. At Cunnatore, the force
was so encamped, that while the 5th Native Infantry on the right had
their supplies of water from wells, the puckallies of the 9th Native
Infantry procured water for that battalion from tanks situated on low
ground on the left of the line. The fact, that the disease first broke
forth in a day or two after passing Cunnatore; the prevailing opinion
of the natives, that it originated there, and that somehow it was
connected with the tanks; a desire to discover some one cause
confined in its influence and operation to one out of the two
battalions; lastly, the difficulty or impossibility of lighting on any
other; all these led to inquiry, and to ascertaining with a considerable
degree of certainty, that each battalion was supplied with water from
a source distinct from the other.”[9] The cholera was said not to be at
Cunnatore at the time the infantry were encamped there, but this
was probably a mistake.
CHOLERA IN The following quotation is from a letter
THE BLACK SEA by a medical officer in the Black Sea fleet,
FLEET. dated Baljik, August 23, 1854, and
published in the Medical Times and Gazette of September 30th.
“A week after the return of the fleet to Baljik, on the 7th of August,
about four thousand French troops encamped on the heights abreast
our anchorage. These were part of the first division of the army that
had marched to Kostenje, about ten days before. By it the first blood
had been drawn on the part of the allied army. The loss in battle was
small, but they had encountered an enemy more terrible than the
Russians. The cholera had broken out among them, and attacking
four hundred on the first night had destroyed sixty. The total loss
had been something incredible. It was said, that out of eleven
thousand men, not less than five thousand had perished in a few
days. This dreadful calamity was attributed to drinking water from
wells that had been poisoned by throwing in putrid carcases.
“Putting aside the question of intentional poisoning, which always
presents itself as the most ready way of accounting for such
destruction, perhaps some support to the theory, that water is the
medium by which cholera poison is conveyed, may be found in this
circumstance, and in another of which I was witness. These soldiers,
wearied by marching from a focus of cholera infection, were seen,
many of them, washing their persons and clothing in the stream
from which all the French ships of war, and the majority of the
English fleet, obtained their supply of water. This was going on on
the 7th and 8th, and, on the nights of the 9th and 10th, the disease
burst out with great violence among the crews of several ships.
“Some English ships were the first to suffer, on the night of the
9th, and they proceeded to sea next morning. On the night of the
10th, other English ships, and some of the French, began to suffer;
and the latter in an almost unparalleled manner.
“The two admirals’ ships, Montebello and Ville de Paris, were
terribly affected. On the previous day they had been in as healthy a
state as usual; and in the night the cholera attacked, in the former,
two hundred men, of whom forty lay dead in the morning; and in the
Ville de Paris there were also many deaths. The French fleet sailed
on the afternoon of the 11th; and the following morning saw the
English ships also at sea.

“On this day (the 14th), about noon, the Britannia, which had left
port in a favourable condition, was attacked suddenly, and in twenty
hours upwards of fifty of her crew had expired. We knew nothing of
the calamity that had overwhelmed our leader until the following
morning, when ‘reports of the sick’ were sent from each ship to the
admiral. By this time (the evening of the 16th), eighty had died, and
more than two hundred remained in greater or less danger.
“The night of the 16th must have been one of great consternation
on board her. The epidemic went on with unchecked violence; the
officers were voluntarily attending on the sick; and the very few of
the crew who had not been attacked, or who were not assisting their
unfortunate messmates, were found quite insufficient to perform the
duties of a ship when under sail; and the admiral, therefore,
determined to return to Baljik, taking with him the Trafalgar and
Albion, also badly affected.
“The crew of the Britannia were at once sent away from the ship,
in small parties, into the numerous transports that remained idle;
and it appears that, by this procedure, the epidemic influences
operating among them have been greatly moderated, if not
extirpated.”
THE CHOLERA The most terrible outbreak of cholera
NEAR GOLDEN which ever occurred in this kingdom, is
SQUARE. probably that which took place in Broad
Street, Golden Square, and the adjoining streets, a few weeks ago.
Within two hundred and fifty yards of the spot where Cambridge
Street joins Broad Street, there were upwards of five hundred fatal
attacks of cholera in ten days. The mortality in this limited area
probably equals any that was ever caused in this country, even by the
plague; and it was much more sudden, as the greater number of
cases terminated in a few hours. The mortality would undoubtedly
have been much greater had it not been for the flight of the
population. Persons in furnished lodgings left first, then other
lodgers went away, leaving their furniture to be sent for when they
could meet with a place to put it in. Many houses were closed
altogether, owing to the death of the proprietors; and, in a great
number of instances, the tradesmen who remained had sent away
their families: so that in less than six days from the commencement
of the outbreak, the most afflicted streets were deserted by more
than three-quarters of their inhabitants.
There were a few cases of cholera in the neighbourhood of Broad
Street, Golden Square, in the latter part of August; and the so-called
outbreak, which commenced in the night between the 31st August
and the 1st September, was, as in all similar instances, only a violent
increase of the malady. As soon as I became acquainted with the
situation and extent of this irruption of cholera, I suspected some
contamination of the water of the much-frequented street pump in
Broad Street, near the end of Cambridge Street; but on examining
the water, on the evening of the 3rd September, I found so little
impurity in it of an organic nature, that I hesitated to come to a
conclusion. Further inquiry, however, showed me that there was no
other circumstance or agent common to the circumscribed locality in
which this sudden increase of cholera occurred, and not extending
beyond it, except the water of the above mentioned pump. I found,
moreover, that the water varied, during the next two days, in the
amount of organic impurity, visible to the naked eye, on close
inspection, in the form of small white, flocculent particles; and I
concluded that, at the commencement of the outbreak, it might
possibly have been still more impure. I requested permission,
therefore, to take a list, at the General Register Office, of the deaths
from cholera, registered during the week ending 2nd September, in
the sub-districts of Golden Square, Berwick Street, and St. Ann’s,
Soho, which was kindly granted. Eighty-nine deaths from cholera
were registered, during the week, in the three sub-districts. Of these,
only six occurred in the four first days of the week; four occurred on
Thursday, the 31st August; and the remaining seventy-nine on Friday
and Saturday. I considered, therefore, that the outbreak commenced
on the Thursday; and I made inquiry, in detail, respecting the eighty-
three deaths registered as having taken place during the last three
days of the week.
On proceeding to the spot, I found that nearly all the deaths had
taken place within a short distance of the pump. There were only ten
deaths in houses situated decidedly nearer to another street pump.
In five of these cases the families of the deceased persons informed
me that they always sent to the pump in Broad Street, as they
preferred the water to that of the pump which was nearer. In three
other cases, the deceased were children who went to school near the
pump in Broad Street. Two of them were known to drink the water;
and the parents of the third think it probable that it did so. The other
two deaths, beyond the district which this pump supplies, represent
only the amount of mortality from cholera that was occurring before
the irruption took place.
With regard to the deaths occurring in the locality belonging to the
pump, there were sixty-one instances in which I was informed that
the deceased persons used to drink the pump-water from Broad
Street, either constantly or occasionally. In six instances I could get
no information, owing to the death or departure of every one
connected with the deceased individuals; and in six cases I was
informed that the deceased persons did not drink the pump-water
before their illness.
The result of the inquiry then was, that there had been no
particular outbreak or increase of cholera, in this part of London,
except among the persons who were in the habit of drinking the
water of the above-mentioned pump-well.
I had an interview with the Board of Guardians of St. James’s
parish, on the evening of Thursday, 7th September, and represented
the above circumstances to them. In consequence of what I said, the
handle of the pump was removed on the following day.
Besides the eighty-three deaths mentioned above as occurring on
the three last days of the week ending September 2nd, and being
registered during that week in the sub-districts in which the attacks
occurred, a number of persons died in Middlesex and other
hospitals, and a great number of deaths which took place in the
locality during the last two days of the week, were not registered till
the week following. The deaths altogether, on the 1st and 2nd of
September, which have been ascertained to belong to this outbreak
of cholera, were one hundred and ninety-seven; and many persons
who were attacked about the same time as these, died afterwards. I
should have been glad to inquire respecting the use of the water from
Broad Street pump in all these instances, but was engaged at the
time in an inquiry in the south districts of London, which will be
alluded to afterwards; and when I began to make fresh inquiries in
the neighbourhood of Golden Square, after two or three weeks had
elapsed, I found that there had been such a distribution of the
remaining population that it would be impossible to arrive at a
complete account of the circumstances. There is no reason to
suppose, however, that a more extended inquiry would have yielded
a different result from that which was obtained respecting the eighty-
three deaths which happened to be registered within the district of
the outbreak before the end of the week in which it occurred.
The additional facts that I have been able to ascertain are in
accordance with those above related; and as regards the small
number of those attacked, who were believed not to have drank the
water from Broad Street pump, it must be obvious that there are
various ways in which the deceased persons may have taken it
without the knowledge of their friends. The water was used for
mixing with spirits in all the public houses around. It was used
likewise at dining-rooms and coffee-shops. The keeper of a coffee-
shop in the neighbourhood, which was frequented by mechanics, and
where the pump-water was supplied at dinner time, informed me (on
6th September) that she was already aware of nine of her customers
who were dead. The pump-water was also sold in various little shops,
with a teaspoonful of effervescing powder in it, under the name of
sherbet; and it may have been distributed in various other ways with
which I am unacquainted. The pump was frequented much more
than is usual, even for a London pump in a populous neighbourhood.
There are certain circumstances bearing on the subject of this
outbreak of cholera which require to be mentioned. The Workhouse
in Poland Street is more than three-fourths surrounded by houses in
which deaths from cholera occurred, yet out of five hundred and
thirty-five inmates only five died of cholera, the other deaths which
took place being those of persons admitted after they were attacked.
The workhouse has a pump-well on the premises, in addition to the
supply from the Grand Junction Water Works, and the inmates
never sent to Broad Street for water. If the mortality in the
workhouse had been equal to that in the streets immediately
surrounding it on three sides, upwards of one hundred persons
would have died.
There is a Brewery in Broad Street, near to the pump, and on
perceiving that no brewer’s men were registered as having died of
cholera, I called on Mr. Huggins, the proprietor. He informed me
that there were above seventy workmen employed in the brewery,
and that none of them had suffered from cholera,—at least in a
severe form,—only two having been indisposed, and that not
seriously, at the time the disease prevailed. The men are allowed a
certain quantity of malt liquor, and Mr. Huggins believes they do not
drink water at all; and he is quite certain that the workmen never
obtained water from the pump in the street. There is a deep well in
the brewery, in addition to the New River water.
At the percussion-cap manufactory, 37 Broad Street, where, I
understand, about two hundred workpeople were employed, two
tubs were kept on the premises always supplied with water from the
pump in the street, for those to drink who wished; and eighteen of
these workpeople died of cholera at their own homes, sixteen men
and two women.
Mr. Marshall, surgeon, of Greek Street, was kind enough to inquire
respecting seven workmen who had been employed in the
manufactory of dentists’ materials, at Nos. 8 and 9 Broad Street, and
who died at their own homes. He learned that they were all in the
habit of drinking water from the pump, generally drinking about
half-a-pint once or twice a day; while two persons who reside
constantly on the premises, but do not drink the pump-water, only
had diarrhœa. Mr. Marshall also informed me of the case of an
officer in the army, who lived at St. John’s Wood, but came to dine in
Wardour Street, where he drank the water from Broad Street pump
at his dinner. He was attacked with cholera, and died in a few hours.
I am indebted to Mr. Marshall for the following cases, which are
interesting as showing the period of incubation, which in these three
cases was from thirty-six to forty-eight hours. Mrs. ——, of 13
Bentinck Street, Berwick Street, aged 28, in the eighth month of
pregnancy, went herself (although they were not usually water
drinkers), on Sunday, 3rd September, to Broad Street pump for
water. The family removed to Gravesend on the following day; and
she was attacked with cholera on Tuesday morning at seven o’clock,
and died of consecutive fever on 15th September, having been
delivered. Two of her children drank also of the water, and were
attacked on the same day as the mother, but recovered.
Dr. Fraser, of Oakley Square, kindly informed me of the following
circumstance. A gentleman in delicate health was sent for from
Brighton to see his brother at 6 Poland Street, who was attacked with
cholera and died in twelve hours, on 1st September. The gentleman
arrived after his brother’s death, and did not see the body. He only
stayed about twenty minutes in the house, where he took a hasty and
scanty luncheon of rumpsteak, taking with it a small tumbler of
brandy and water, the water being from Broad Street pump. He went
to Pentonville, and was attacked with cholera on the evening of the
following day, 2nd September, and died the next evening.
Dr. Fraser also first called my attention to the following
circumstances, which are perhaps the most conclusive of all in
proving the connexion between the Broad Street pump and the
outbreak of cholera. In the “Weekly Return of Births and Deaths” of
September 9th, the following death is recorded as occurring in the
Hampstead district: “At West End, on 2nd September, the widow of a
percussion-cap maker, aged 59 years, diarrhœa two hours, cholera
epidemica sixteen hours.”
I was informed by this lady’s son that she had not been in the
neighbourhood of Broad Street for many months. A cart went from
Broad Street to West End every day, and it was the custom to take
out a large bottle of the water from the pump in Broad Street, as she
preferred it. The water was taken on Thursday, 31st August, and she
drank of it in the evening, and also on Friday. She was seized with
cholera on the evening of the latter day, and died on Saturday, as the
above quotation from the register shows. A niece, who was on a visit
to this lady, also drank of the water; she returned to her residence, in
a high and healthy part of Islington, was attacked with cholera, and
died also. There was no cholera at the time, either at West End or in
the neighbourhood where the niece died. Besides these two persons,
only one servant partook of the water at Hampstead West End, and
she did not suffer, or, at least, not severely. There were many persons
who drank the water from Broad Street pump about the time of the
outbreak, without being attacked with cholera; but this does not
diminish the evidence respecting the influence of the water, for
reasons that will be fully stated in another part of this work.
 MAP 1.

The deaths which occurred during this fatal outbreak of cholera

are indicated in the accompanying map, as far as I could ascertain
them. There are necessarily some deficiencies, for in a few of the
instances of persons who died in the hospitals after their removal
from the neighbourhood of Broad Street, the number of the house
from which they had been removed was not registered. The address
of those who died after their removal to St. James’s Workhouse was
not registered; and I was only able to obtain it, in a part of the cases,
on application at the Master’s Office, for many of the persons were
too ill, when admitted, to give any account of themselves. In the case
also of some of the workpeople and others who contracted the
cholera in this neighbourhood, and died in different parts of London,
the precise house from which they had removed is not stated in the
return of deaths. I have heard of some persons who died in the
country shortly after removing from the neighbourhood of Broad
Street; and there must, no doubt, be several cases of this kind that I
have not heard of. Indeed, the full extent of the calamity will
probably never be known. The deficiencies I have mentioned,
however, probably do not detract from the correctness of the map as
a diagram of the topography of the outbreak; for, if the locality of the
few additional cases could be ascertained, they would probably be
distributed over the district of the outbreak in the same proportion
as the large number which are known.
The dotted line on the map surrounds the sub-districts of Golden
Square, St. James’s, and Berwick Street, St. James’s, together with
the adjoining portion of the sub-district of St. Anne, Soho, extending
from Wardour Street to Dean Street, and a small part of the sub-
district of St. James’s Square enclosed by Marylebone Street,
Titchfield Street, Great Windmill Street, and Brewer Street. All the
deaths from cholera which were registered in the six weeks from 19th
August to 30th September within this locality, as well as those of
persons removed into Middlesex Hospital, are shown in the map[10]
by a black line in the situation of the house in which it occurred, or in
which the fatal attack was contracted.
In addition to these the deaths of persons removed to University
College Hospital, to Charing Cross Hospital, and to various parts of
London, are indicated in the map, where the exact address was given
in the “Weekly Return of Deaths,” or, when I could learn it by private
inquiry.
The pump in Broad Street is indicated on the map, as well as all
the surrounding pumps to which the public had access at the time. It
requires to be stated that the water of the pump in Marlborough
Street, at the end of Carnaby Street, was so impure that many people
avoided using it. And I found that the persons who died near this
pump in the beginning of September, had water from the Broad
Street pump. With regard to the pump in Rupert Street, it will be
noticed that some streets which are near to it on the map, are in fact
a good way removed, on account of the circuitous road to it. These
circumstances being taken into account, it will be observed that the
deaths either very much diminished, or ceased altogether, at every
point where it becomes decidedly nearer to send to another pump
than to the one in Broad Street. It may also be noticed that the
deaths are most numerous near to the pump where the water could
be more readily obtained. The wide open street in which the pump is
situated suffered most, and next the streets branching from it, and
especially those parts of them which are nearest to Broad Street. If
there have been fewer deaths in the south half of Poland Street than
in some other streets leading from Broad Street, it is no doubt
because this street is less densely inhabited.
In some of the instances, where the deaths are scattered a little
further from the rest on the map, the malady was probably
contracted at a nearer point to the pump. A cabinet-maker, who was
removed from Philip’s Court, Noel Street, to Middlesex Hospital,
worked in Broad Street. A boy also who died in Noel Street, went to
the National school at the end of Broad Street, and having to pass the
pump, probably drank of the water. A tailor, who died at 6, Heddon
Court, Regent Street, spent most of his time in Broad Street. A
woman, removed to the hospital from 10, Heddon Court, had been
nursing a person who died of cholera in Marshall Street. A little girl,
who died in Ham Yard, and another who died in Angel Court, Great
Windmill Street, went to the school in Dufour’s Place, Broad Street,
and were in the habit of drinking the pump-water, as were also a
child from Naylor’s Yard, and several others, who went to this and
other schools near the pump in Broad Street. A woman who died at
2, Great Chapel Street, Oxford Street, had been occupied for two days
preceding her illness at the public washhouses near the pump, and
used to drink a good deal of water whilst at her work; the water
drank there being sometimes from the pump and sometimes from
the cistern.
The limited district in which this outbreak of cholera occurred,
contains a great variety in the quality of the streets and houses;
Poland Street and Great Pulteney Street consisting in a great
measure of private houses occupied by one family, whilst Husband
Street and Peter Street are occupied chiefly by the poor Irish. The
remaining streets are intermediate in point of respectability. The
mortality appears to have fallen pretty equally amongst all classes, in
proportion to their numbers. Masters are not distinguished from
journeymen in the registration returns of this district, but, judging
from my own observation, I consider that out of rather more than six
hundred deaths, there were about one hundred in the families of
tradesmen and other resident householders. One hundred and five
persons who had been removed from this district died in Middlesex,
University College, and other hospitals, and two hundred and six
persons were buried at the expense of St. James’s parish; the latter
number includes many of those who died in the hospitals, and a
great number who were far from being paupers, and would on any
other occasion have been buried by their friends, who, at this time,
were either not aware of the calamity or were themselves
overwhelmed by it. The greatest portion of the persons who died
were tailors and other operatives, who worked for the shops about
Bond Street and Regent Street, and the wives and children of these
operatives. They were living chiefly in rooms which they rented by
the week.
The following table exhibits the chronological features of this
terrible outbreak of cholera.

TABLE I.
 Date. No. of Fatal Attacks. Deaths.
August 19 1 1
„ 20 1 0
„ 21 1 2
„ 22 0 0
„ 23 1 0
„ 24 1 2
„ 25 0 0
„ 26 1 0
„ 27 1 1
„ 28 1 0
„ 29 1 1
„ 30 8 2
„ 31 56 3
September 1 143 70
„ 2 116 127
„ 3 54 76
„ 4 46 71
„ 5 36 45
„ 6 20 37
„ 7 28 32
„ 8 12 30
„ 9 11 24
„ 10 5 18
„ 11 5 15
„ 12 1 6
„ 13 3 13
„ 14 0 6
„ 15 1 8
„ 16 4 6
„ 17 2 5
„ 18 3 2
„ 19 0 3
„ 20 0 0
„ 21 2 0
„ 22 1 2
 „ 23 1 3
„ 24 1 0
„ 25 1 0
„ 26 1 2
„ 27 1 0
„ 28 0 2
„ 29 0 1
„ 30 0 0
Date unknown 45 0

Total 616 616

The deaths in the above table are compiled from the sources
mentioned above in describing the map; but some deaths which were
omitted from the map on account of the number of the house not
being known, are included in the table. As regards the date of attack,
I was able to obtain it with great precision, through the kindness of
Mr. Sibley, in upwards of eighty deaths which occurred in Middlesex
Hospital; for the hour of admission was entered in the hospital
books, as well as the previous duration of the illness. In a few other
cases also I had exact information of the hour of attack, and in the
remainder I have calculated it by subtracting the duration of the
illness from the date of death. Where the illness did not exceed
twelve hours, the attack was considered to have commenced the
same day; where the illness exceeded twelve, and did not exceed
thirty-six hours, the attack was put down to the previous day, and so
on. Where the illness exceeded forty-eight hours, its duration is
generally given in days, which were subtracted from the date of the
attack. Although this plan does not always give the precise date of
attack, it reaches within a few hours of it, and is as valuable perhaps
as if the exact day were given, unless the hour as well as the day
could be introduced into the table. Where premonitory diarrhœa is
stated to have existed, the period of its duration is deducted from the
date of death, and, in fact, the time of attack is fixed at the first
commencement of indisposition, except in two or three instances in
which the patient was labouring under another disease, as phthisis or
typhus fever. There are forty-five cases in which the duration of the
illness was not certified, or entered in the books of the registrars, and
the time of attack in these cases is consequently unknown. These
persons nearly all died in the first days of September, in the height of
the calamity, and it is almost certain that they were cut off very
quickly, like the others who died at this time.
It is pretty certain that very few of the fifty-six attacks placed in the
table to the 31st August occurred till late in the evening of that day.
The irruption was extremely sudden, as I learn from the medical men
living in the midst of the district, and commenced in the night
between the 31st August and 1st September. There was hardly any
premonitory diarrhœa in the cases which occurred during the first
three days of the outbreak; and I have been informed by several
medical men, that very few of the cases which they attended on those
days ended in recovery.
The greatest number of attacks in any one day occurred on the 1st
of September, immediately after the outbreak commenced. The
following day the attacks fell from one hundred and forty-three to
one hundred and sixteen, and the day afterwards to fifty-four. A
glance at the above table will show that the fresh attacks continued to
become less numerous every day. On September the 8th—the day
when the handle of the pump was removed—there were twelve
attacks; on the 9th, eleven; on the 10th, five; on the 11th, five; on the
12th, only one; and after this time, there were never more than four
attacks on one day. During the decline of the epidemic the deaths
were more numerous than the attacks, owing to the decease of many
persons who had lingered for several days in consecutive fever.
THE PUMP- There is no doubt that the mortality was
WELL IN BROAD much diminished, as I said before, by the
STREET, flight of the population, which commenced
GOLDEN
SQUARE.
soon after the outbreak; but the attacks had
so far diminished before the use of the
water was stopped, that it is impossible to decide whether the well
still contained the cholera poison in an active state, or whether, from
some cause, the water had become free from it. The pump-well has
been opened, and I was informed by Mr. Farrell, the superintendent
of the works, that there was no hole or crevice in the brickwork of the
well, by which any impurity might enter; consequently in this respect
the contamination of the water is not made out by the kind of
physical evidence detailed in some of the instances previously
related. I understand that the well is from twenty-eight to thirty feet
in depth, and goes through the gravel to the surface of the clay
beneath. The sewer, which passes within a few yards of the well, is
twenty-two feet below the surface. The water at the time of the
cholera contained impurities of an organic nature, in the form of
minute whitish flocculi, visible on close inspection to the naked eye,
as I before stated. Dr. Hassall, who was good enough to examine
some of this water with the microscope, informed me that these
particles had no organised structure, and that he thought they
probably resulted from decomposition of other matter. He found a
great number of very minute oval animalcules in the water, which are
of no importance, except as an additional proof that the water
contained organic matter on which they lived. The water also
contained a large quantity of chlorides, indicating, no doubt, the
impure sources from which the spring is supplied. Mr. Eley, the
percussion-cap manufacturer of 37 Broad Street, informed me that
he had long noticed that the water became offensive, both to the
smell and taste, after it had been kept about two days. This, as I
noticed before, is a character of water contaminated with sewage.
Another person had noticed for months that a film formed on the
surface of the water when it had been kept a few hours.
I inquired of many persons whether they had observed any change
in the character of the water, about the time of the outbreak of
cholera, and was answered in the negative. I afterwards, however,
met with the following important information on this point. Mr.
Gould, the eminent ornithologist, lives near the pump in Broad
Street, and was in the habit of drinking the water. He was out of town
at the commencement of the outbreak of cholera, but came home on
Saturday morning, 2nd September, and sent for some of the water
almost immediately, when he was much surprised to find that it had
an offensive smell, although perfectly transparent and fresh from the
pump. He did not drink any of it. Mr. Gould’s assistant, Mr. Prince,
had his attention drawn to the water, and perceived its offensive
smell. A servant of Mr. Gould who drank the pump-water daily, and
drank a good deal of it on August 31st, was seized with cholera at an
early hour on September 1st. She ultimately recovered.
Whether the impurities of the water were derived from the sewers,
the drains, or the cesspools, of which latter there are a number in the
neighbourhood, I cannot tell. I have been informed by an eminent
engineer, that whilst a cesspool in a clay soil requires to be emptied
every six or eight months, one sunk in the gravel will often go for
twenty years without being emptied, owing to the soluble matters
passing away into the land-springs by percolation. As there had been
deaths from cholera just before the great outbreak not far from this
pump-well, and in a situation elevated a few feet above it, the
evacuations from the patients might of course be amongst the
impurities finding their way into the water, and judging the matter
by the light derived from other facts and considerations previously
detailed, we must conclude that such was the case. A very important
point in respect to this pump-well is that the water passed with
almost everybody as being perfectly pure, and it did in fact contain a
less quantity of impurity than the water of some other pumps in the
same parish, which had no share in the propagation of cholera. We
must conclude from this outbreak that the quantity of morbid matter
which is sufficient to produce cholera is inconceivably small, and that
the shallow pump-wells in a town cannot be looked on with too much
suspicion, whatever their local reputation may be.
PUMP-WELL, Whilst the presumed contamination of
BROAD ST., the water of the Broad Street pump with the
GOLDEN SQ. evacuations of cholera patients, affords an
exact explanation of the fearful outbreak of cholera in St. James’s
parish, there is no other circumstance which offers any explanation
at all, whatever hypothesis of the nature and cause of the malady be
adopted. Many persons were inclined to attribute the severity of the
malady in this locality to the very circumstance to which some people
attribute the comparative immunity of the city of London from the
same disease, viz., to the drains in the neighbourhood having been
disturbed and put in order about half a year previously. Mr.
Bazelgette, however, pointed out, in a report to the commissioners,
that the streets in which the new sewers had been made suffered less
than the others; and a reference to the map will show that this is
correct, for I recollect that the streets in which the sewers were
repaired about February last, were Brewer Street, Little Pulteney
Street, and Dean Street, Soho. Many of the non-medical public were
disposed to attribute the outbreak of cholera to the supposed
existence of a pit in which persons dying of the plague had been
buried about two centuries ago; and, if the alleged plague-pit had
been nearer to Broad Street, they would no doubt still cling to the
idea. The situation of the supposed pit is, however, said to be Little
Marlborough Street, just out of the area in which the chief mortality
occurred. With regard to effluvia from the sewers passing into the
streets and houses, that is a fault common to most parts of London
and other towns. There is nothing peculiar in the sewers or drainage
of the limited spot in which this outbreak occurred; and Saffron Hill
and other localities, which suffer much more from ill odours, have
been very lightly visited by cholera.
IRRUPTION OF Just at the time when the great outbreak
CHOLERA AT of cholera occurred in the neighbourhood of
DEPTFORD. Broad Street, Golden Square, there was an
equally violent irruption in Deptford, but of a more limited extent.
About ninety deaths took place in a few days, amongst two or three
score of small houses, in the north end of New Street and an
adjoining row called French’s Fields. Deptford is supplied with very
good water from the river Ravensbourne by the Kent Water Works,
and until this outbreak there was but little cholera in the town,
except amongst some poor people, who had no water except what
they got by pailsful from Deptford Creek—an inlet of the Thames.
There had, however, been a few cases in and near New Street, just
before the great outbreak. On going to the spot on September 12th
and making inquiry, I found that the houses in which the deaths had
occurred were supplied by the Kent Water Works, and the
inhabitants never used any other water. The people informed me,
however, that for some few weeks the water had been extremely
offensive when first turned on; they said it smelt like a cesspool, and
frothed like soap suds. They were in the habit of throwing away a few
pailsful of that which first came in, and collecting some for use after
it became clear. On inquiring in the surrounding streets, to which
this outbreak of cholera did not extend, viz., Wellington Street, Old
King Street, and Hughes’s Fields, I found that there had been no
alteration in the water. I concluded, therefore, that a leakage had
taken place into the pipes supplying the places where the outbreak
occurred, during the intervals when the water was not turned on. Gas
is known to get into the water-pipes occasionally in this manner,
when they are partially empty, and to impart its taste to the water.
There are no sewers in New Street or French’s Fields, and the refuse
of all kinds consequently saturates the ground in which the pipes are
laid. I found that the water collected by the people, after throwing
away the first portion, still contained more organic matter than that
supplied to the adjoining streets. On adding nitrate of silver and
exposing the specimens to the light, a deeper tint of brown was
developed in the former than in the latter.

All the instances of communication of cholera through the medium

of water, above related, have resulted from the contamination of a
pump-well, or some other limited supply of water; and the outbreaks
of cholera connected with the contamination, though sudden and
intense, have been limited also; but when the water of a river
becomes infected with the cholera evacuations emptied from on
board ship, or passing down drains and sewers, the communication
of the disease, though generally less sudden and violent, is much
more widely extended; more especially when the river water is
distributed by the steam engine and pipes connected with
waterworks. Cholera may linger in the courts and alleys crowded
with the poor, for reasons previously pointed out, but I know of no
instance in which it has been generally spread through a town or
neighbourhood, amongst all classes of the community, in which the
drinking water has not been the medium of its diffusion. Each
epidemic of cholera in London has borne a strict relation to the
nature of the water supply of its different districts, being modified
only by poverty, and the crowding and want of cleanliness which
always attend it.
THE EPIDEMIC The following table shows the number of
OF 1832. deaths from cholera in the various districts
of London in 1832, together with the nature of the water supply at
that period. (See next page.)[11]
This table shows that in the greater part of Southwark, which was
supplied with worse water than any other part of the metropolis, the
mortality from cholera was also much higher than anywhere else.
The other south districts, supplied with water obtained at points
higher up the Thames, and containing consequently less impurity,
were less affected. On the north of the Thames, the east districts,
supplied, in 1832, with water from the river Lea, at Old Ford, where
it contained the sewage of a large population, suffered more than
other parts on the north side of London. Whitechapel suffered more
than the other east districts; probably not more from the poverty and
crowded state of the population, than from the great number of
mariners, coalheavers, and others, living there, who were employed
on the Thames, and got their water, whilst at work, direct from the
river. There were one hundred and thirty-nine deaths from cholera
amongst persons afloat on the Thames. The cholera passed very
lightly over most of the districts supplied by the New River
Company. St. Giles’ was an exception, owing to the overcrowding of
the common lodging-houses in the part of the parish called the
Rookery. The City of London also suffered severely in 1832. Now
when the engine at Broken Wharf was employed to draw water from
the Thames, this water was supplied more particularly to the City,
and not at all to the higher districts supplied by the New River
Company. This would offer an explanation of the high mortality from
cholera in the City at that time, supposing the engine were actually
used during 1832; but I have not yet been able to ascertain that
circumstance with certainty. I know, however, that it was still used
occasionally some years later.

TABLE II.
 Deaths
from
Deaths
Cholera
Districts. Population. from Water Supply.
in
Cholera.
10,000
living.
St. George the Southwark Water
Martyr, Works, from
Southwark} Thames at
St. Olave’s, 77,796 856 110 London Bridge.
Southwark} No filter or
St. Saviour’s, settling
Southwark} reservoir.
Chiefly by
Lambeth Water
Christchurch, Works, from
13,705 35 25}
Southwark Thames
opposite
Hungerford
Market. No
Lambeth 87,856 337 38} filter or settling
reservoir.
Chiefly by South
Newington 44,526 200 45} London Water
Works, from
Thames at
Vauxhall Bridge.
Camberwell 28,231 107 37} Reservoirs. No
filter.
Bermondsey 29,741 210 70} South London
Water Works, &
Rotherhithe 12,875 19 14} Tidal Ditches.
Bethnal Green 62,018 170 27}
St. George-in-the- East London
38,505 123 31} Waterworks,
East
42{ from tidal part
Poplar 25,066 107 42}
of river Lea at
Stepney 78,826 225 28} Old Ford.
Whitechapel[12] 52,848 470 88}
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