On this day on 3rd July
On this day in 1847 Tory MP George Hudson argues against public health measures. "I admit that there was a very general feeling in Yorkshire in favour of the adoption of some sanitary regulations, and that petitions praying the House to consider and sanction such measures had been presented from corporations and from public meetings.... I think that the evils resulting from defective sanitary regulations had been very much exaggerated, and I hope the House would pause before they gave their assent to this measure... The country is sick of centralisation of commissions of inquiries. The people want to be left to manage their own affairs; they do not want Parliament to be so paternal as it wishes to be - interfering in everybody's business."
On this day in 1858 Punch Magazine publish cartoon on cholera outbreak. In August 1854 cholera cases began to appear in Soho. John Snow investigated all 93 local deaths. He concluded the local water supply had become contaminated, for nearly all the victims used water from the Broad Street pump. At a nearby prison, conditions were far worse, but few deaths. Snow concluded that this was because it had its own well. On 7th September he requested the parish Board of Guardians to disconnect the pump. Sceptical but desperate, they agreed and the handle was removed. After this very few cases were reported.
In 1855, Snow gave his views to a House of Commons Select Committee set up to investigate cholera. Snow argued that cholera was not contagious nor spread by miasmata but was water-borne. He advocated the government invested in massive improvements in drainage and sewage. It has been claimed that his research "played some part in the investment by London and other major British cities in new main drainage and sewage systems."
On this day in 1944 German government urge young women to have illegitimate children. "The parents of girls enrolled in the German Girls' League have filed a complaint with the wardship court at Habel-Brandenburg concerning leaders of the League who have intimated to their daughters that they should bear illegitimate children; these leaders have pointed out that in view of the prevailing shortage of men, not every girl could expect to get a husband in future, and that the girls should at least fulfil their task as German women and donate a child to the Führer."
On this day in 1944 Niels Bohr writes letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about nuclear weapons. "A weapon of an unparalleled power is being created which will completely change all future conditions of warfare. Unless some agreement about the control of the use of the new active materials can be obtained in due time, any temporary advantage, however great, may be outweighed by a perpetual menace to human security. An initiative, aiming at forestalling a fateful competition, should serve to uproot any cause of distrust between the powers of whose harmonious collaboration the fate of coming generations will depend."
