Amanda J. Thomas

3.5 stars

This book looks at cholera in England largely over the 19th century, when Asiatic cholera first arrived and became more common than the less-fatal native cholera. Much of the book focuses on the medical establishment, including studies on how cholera spread and how they treated it, and then on London's rebuilt sewage system, the cost, the pumping stations, and so forth.

I knew next to nothing about cholera in England when I started this, other than that my 2ggrandfather lived in a small town that was hit badly in 1849. So the background information was interesting and necessary. I can only imagine the fear of people living in the hard-hit areas, as they believed cholera was spread through the air when it was actually coming from the water supply--and the first doctor to prove this was still not fully believed until after his death. I read a galley on my kindle, and there are some maps and a number of pictures at the end. I found myself wanting and needing maps and diagrams (especially of the old and new sewage systems), because I don't know London well and I certainly don't know sewage engineering, so all the words describing how and where cholera spread and how the sewage was moved was just...words. Hopefully the final book will have charts and maps called out in the text for easy review--and hopefully they will be large enough to see. Over 20 % of this book was endmatter--notes (generally just citations), a bibliography, and pictures.

I did find the last two or so chapters to feel rushed and tacked on--these were about cholera today, its resistance to antibiotics, a vaccine that (with good hygiene) is very helpful, and about ongoing research on cholera and its spread. The science here was a little over my head (erspecially endemic vs epidemic).

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Thanks to netgalley and Pen and Sword for providing me with an e-galley of this book.… (mehr)

Cholera – The Victorian Plague

Any historian of the nineteenth century will be able to refer to many outbreaks of Cholera, not out in the colonies, but here in Britain, and more importantly amongst the poor in the slums. There is not just one singular example, but many, whether in London, Manchester or Edinburgh, there are many reports and sadly deaths from Cholera.

Historian Amanda Thomas, who has written previously about Cholera in Lambeth London, as well as other books has written an interesting and passionate book about Cholera. This is an excellent reader for the general reader of history and an excellent introduction for those students of history who wish to go deeper in to the subject.

Amanda Thomas in the first chapter of the book gives a brief synopsis of the history and the epidemics that it has caused. Cholera was feared especially in the nineteenth century and even caused unrest in 1820, but as an ancient disease it has always had the ability to cause fear as its reputation as a killer.

Thomas deals with the state of the poor and the terrible sanitary conditions that the poor lived in within the slums. How with the density and poor housing, along with the poor sanitation, the overcrowding, the influx of migrants along with the carbon and chemical emissions from both home and factories, all added to the shortening of lives. By doing this, she is setting the scene in which cholera could flourish especially during the Industrial Revolution.

This is an interesting book for all those who are interested in the lives of the poor in the nineteenth century and how disease affected them and took many lives early. As Thomas states in her conclusion ‘Cholera was the plague of the Victorian era…’ but given the right circumstances could return. This is an engrossing read, thought provoking and challenging and a bright light on somethings the elites would have rather forgotten.… (mehr)