The fight against cholera in Amsterdam in the nineteenth century:Clean drinking water as a new weapon against disease

• Main Author: van Dam, Petra J.E.M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Eel (Anguilla anguilla); drinking water; Anguilla anguilla
• Online Access: https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/047166e6-e5a9-4795-aeca-8df2c613b1fb; http://hdl.handle.net/1871.1/047166e6-e5a9-4795-aeca-8df2c613b1fb; https://copingwithdrought.com/links/; http://codexhistoriae.nl/over-ons/

In Amsterdam, a major problem in dealing with cholera was the lack of knowledge. The cause of the disease was unknown, only some vague ideas existed based on antiquated miasma theories. This lasted until well into the second half of the nineteenth century, when, finally, medical professions acquired new knowledge based on experimental research in laboratories and in the field, and discovered the bacterium that caused cholera. Clean, piped drinking water turned out to be a very effective measure to prevent cholera outbreaks. Once it was installed in Amsterdam by the Dune Water Company in 1853, only one more cholera outbreak followed in 1866, which resulted in very few deaths. This outbreak is visualized in the famous cholera map of 1866. It shows that people in wealthy neighbourhoods had a much higher chance of surviving the disease compared to those living in poor neighbourhoods. Contemporaries following the old miasma theories saw a relationship with bad housing quality and the humid condition of the subsoil. More up-to-date contemporaries had a different interpretation of this map, as does the modern observer. The houses in the wealthy neighbourhoods were connected to the closed pipes of the Dune Water Company. Here the cholera bacterium had no chance to enter its favourite aquatic environment of the drinking water systems and thus lacked access to new hosts.