Cholera as a 'sanitary test' of British cities, 1831-1866.

ABSTRACT: The malign contribution of northern industrial cities to the stagnation of national life expectancy over the period 1820-1870 forms part of one of the most long-running debates in English economic history, regarding the impact of early industrialisation on living standards. The deteriorating quality of urban water supplies often features in these arguments as the key driver of worsening mortality in this period. Here we use mortality reported from cholera in the epidemic years 1831-1832 and 1848-1849 as an indicator of the extent of sewage contamination of water in English and Welsh towns in this period. Surprisingly, the geography of reported mortality did not indicate that northern manufacturing and industrial towns were especially deficient in this respect. However, logistic regression

SUBMITTER: Davenport RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6582458 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature