More on why we Stay Alive

A couple of days ago I referred to the doubling of human life expectancy in 100 years, and the importance of pasteurization of milk in making that happen. Our next installment is about water. There ' s nothing more basic than good old H2O, but it used to kill city dwellers about as often as milk. People actually figured this out even before Pasteur and Koch came up with the germ theory of disease.Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by a bacterium called Vibrio cholera, which is spread through contaminated water or food. The disease causes severe diarrhea that can last for several days. Depending on the strain of bacteria, the fatality rate from untreated cholera can range from 5% to 50%. It was a common deadly disease in 19th Century cities. Before 1854, it was generally believed that cholera and other diseases were caused by “bad air” or “miasma,” a theory accepted from the time of Hippocrates. The miasma was supposedly created by rotting organic matter. In 1854 a cholera outbreak occurred in the Soho district of London. Physician John Snow mapped deaths from the outbreak and discovered that they mostly occurred among people whose nearest source of water was a pump on Broad Street. He persuaded the local council to remove the pump handle and the outbreak ended. (This is considered by many to be the seminal event in the history of public health.)It was found that the water from the Broad Street well was contaminated with sewage from a cesspit. Snow also mapped o...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs