Anyone know about wells and Victorian plumbing?

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Haworth in Yorkshire where the Bronte sisters lived was known for the poor health of its inhabitants. The churchyard is at the top of the hill and the drinking water was taken from the bottom! A deadly self sustaining arrangement.

Colin

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

 Back then many deniers were convinced no action was necessary.  Chadwick exposed their fallacies, and then a succession of Cholera Epidemics and the Great Stink made it clear Chadwick was right.

Dave

Ironic that 150 years later we have gone full circle back to the popular rise of science denial ranging from climate change to vaccinations, to moonlandings to, can you believe it, spherical Earth.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I wonder if a lot of the 19C denying about polluted water was from doctors taking umbrage at non-doctors pointing out what was really happening?

That happened with the link between mosquitoes and malaria, made when early efforts to construct the Panama Canal though swamps had such a high death-toll from the fever.

Similarly with “caisson disease” first reported among the builders of New York’s Brooklyn Bridge.

The doctors’ dogma about malaria, and I think cholera, etc., was based on an early notion about “foul miasmas” being the cause.

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