immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow and dirty”(Dickens, Expectations 129). The sight of the immense, dirty smudges of smoke witnessed from a distance made a dominant impression on the minds of visitors. Upon coming closer, the visual impression was soon replaced by an aural one: the smell of the city suffocated all the rosy fantasy, if any, of this huge conglomeration. The overwhelming smell became an abiding aspect of London life, especially for people visiting the city.
Of all complaints and pleas, the Thames was among the most notorious symbols of city pollution. The river, in Peter Ackroyd’s words, once owned the
“semi-miraculous properties”of “the gift of self-purification”(Thames 290). However, the ongoing process of expansion of population, industry, and construction suffocated the life force of the Thames. Billingsgate, the most ancient of all London markets, was famous for the stench of the fish it sold. It was estimated that the city consumed
over 500 tons of fish each day. All the fishery products were shipped from the river, processed by the river, and their waste was dumped into the river. It was most ironic to note that fishery products consumed on the bank of this ditch of black, brownish color with a putrid smell did not come from the river; there was no sign of life
evidenced in this river. Ackroyd described the river as dead: “No fish could live in the river, and no bird came”(Thames 279). However, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, fishing in the Thames, at least the part below Teddington, came almost to an end, with only whitebait and shrimp being caught. Richard Jefferie’s novel, After
London (1885), issued a warning on the fate of the Thames, indicating that the river
would becomea vast stagnant swamp, which no man dare enter, since death would be his inevitable fate. There exhales from this oozy mass so fatal a vapour that no animal can endure it. The black water bears a greenish-brown floating scum, which for ever bubbles up from the putrid mud of the bottom. … There are no fishes, neither can eels exist in the mud, nor even newts. It is dead. (qtd.
in Ackroyd, Thames 279)
The river remained in a permanent state of stagnancy for more than a century. Its water was generally described as “greenish”or “brownish,”and its quality drastically degraded in areas near the sewage pipe which was said to be “thick and as black as ink”(Ackroyd, Thames 273). When a salmon was found beyond Teddington Weir in 1976, the catch made headlines because it was the first salmon found in the non-tidal Thames for 140 years (Thames 279).
The river was toxic for fish and birds that lived by the water and, presumably, lethal to those who drank from the water. In 1843, thirteen children were thrown into the river from a steamboat. The fate to these unlucky lives was grim: “Three drowned, and the chances of survival of the others were slim, if they swallowed much of the
filthy river water”(Picard 14). An 1849 guidebook warned visitors against drinking
“the unwholesome water furnished to the tanks of houses from the Thames”(Picard 78). In 1855, it was declared illegal to take water “from any part of the River Thames below Teddington”for household usage (Ackroyd, Thames 251). Even Chancellor Benjamin Disraeli famously lamented that the river had become “a Stygian pool reeking with ineffable and unbearable horror”(Ackroyd, London 344). Despite all these endeavors to warn the city of the danger of the Thames, according to Ackroyd’s estimation, half of the water supply came from this river. The problem was
compounded by the fact that the distribution of water was drawn by means of wooden pipes (Ackroyd, Thames 250). The fragility of the material was a ticking bomb for the massive population, whose livelihood depended on the drinking water. Eight different commercial companies supplied water of various qualities to this great city. They often laid their main pipes next to the sewers under the road. If both leaked, as it was reported with frequency, the mix of drinking water and sewage was not just disgusting, but deadly (Picard 78; Ackroyd, London 344).
The excrement and waste of the burgeoning population and the pollution that came along with the Industrial Revolution were all channeled into the Thames. Punch magazine described the river in 1858, saying it had become no different than “one vast gutter”in which the leavings of the city were dumped (Ackroyd 273). Although there was no direct and solid proof at the time to associate the great epidemics of cholera with the polluted water in the Thames, there remained doubts as to the cause of this fearful disease. Four massive infections of cholera broke out in 1831–32, 1848–49, 1853–54, and 1866. Casualties caused by cholera cast a shocking shadow on the city's inhabitants. The process of infection was known to be fast and efficient, and great pain was suffered. Victims dying from cholera were all reported to suffer great pain before they finally passed away. The massive casualties were another
reason to fear. The overcrowded population in the city became an easy target for the spread of cholera: in 1850 alone, 50,000 people died from the disease (Flanders 336, McLean 3).
The vital connection between cholera and polluted drinking water was
discovered and confirmed by Dr. John Snow during the peak of the 1854 epidemic. In the span of just two weeks during the summer, 616 inhabitants of Soho perished from the disease. Snow traced these fatalities to a street water-pump on Broad Street. Later, he discovered that men who worked in a nearby brewery were not infected, because they drank beer instead of water. Snow also investigated the source of the water-pump and discovered that the pump led directly back to the Thames. Following his
suggestion, the parish authorities removed the pump handle to make sure that no resident drank from it. As a result, the rate of infection in this area dramatically plummeted.1
“All Smell is Disease”:Sanitationist Realism in Charles Dickens
Of all the Chadwickian hygienic regulations, special attention was aimed at safeguarding public health from threat by all kinds of smells. Sensing, detecting, and categorizing various kinds of smells were of primal importance and urgency for all sanitationists. However, due to the lack of efficient medical technologies for
1 Thestory ofJohn Snow’sinvestigation ofcontaminated drinking waterand itseffecton cholerais widely acknowledged by medical historians. His great courage, perseverance, and ability in synthesizing the possible cause of cholera based on known facts on cholera casualties makes him a modern intellectual hero, and his story has been generally viewed as a triumph of public health activism forover150 years.MosthistoriansacceptSnow’saccountsin hisfamouspamphletOn the Mode of Communication of Cholera, in which he described the process of investigating and negotiating with local parish leaders. However, Dona Schneider and David E. Lilienfeld denied this widely accepted version of the discovery by suggesting that Snow’spleato removethepump handle at Broad Street was actually rejected and that it was Snow who removed the handle. They also argued that by the time the pump handle was removed, the outbreak of cholera in this area had already been in decline,so Snow’sdecision to remove the handle did not directly prove that cholera was a waterborne contagious disease (Schneider and Lilienfeld 283–4).
investigation, ways of observing and evaluating the cleanliness of the living environment were limited to the most primitive sensual experience: by seeing and smelling. Chadwick’s words provided a catchy motto for all of the sensual-orientated sanitationists: “All smell is, if it be intense, immediate, acute disease”(qtd. in Bynum 72). Stench in waste water and cesspools, for the most part, embodied the fear and disgust of the Victorian imagination of disease.
Chadwick’s impact on acknowledging negative influences on human health was inspiring to many intellectuals when he first preached the importance of a clean and decent living environment. Dickens, responding philanthropically and with typical energy to the chief charitable movements of his time,2 was under the sway of Chadwickian sanitationist narratives. In a public speech given at the Metropolitan Sanitary Association in 1851, Dickens openly credited Chadwick with establishing an awareness of sanitation:“Twelveorfifteen yearsago,someofthefirstvaluable reports of Mr. Chadwick and of Dr. Southwood Smith strengthening and much enlarging my previous imperfect knowledge of this truth, made me, in my sphere, earnestin theSanitary Cause”(Dickens, “Speech”915). Dickens obtained his knowledge and sustained his interest from reading sanitary reports. It was also likely that Dickens learned directly from his brother-in-law, who happened to be a civil engineer working closely with Chadwick (Eysell 166–7).3 It is evident that Dickens
2 NorrisPopedocumented Dickens’philanthropicendeavorsand argued thatDickenswasdevoted to the environmental reforms of his time. Based on his correspondence, lectures, and novels, Pope claims that Dickens tended to facilitate this concern with sanitary improvements in his depiction of the neglected dwellings of the poor. According to Pope, Dickens was associating material
degradation with moral decline (Pope 5–10, 200–5).
3 Joanne Eysell, in A Medical Companion to Dickens’s Fiction, suggests a plausible and powerful Chadwickian influence on Dickens. Eysell states that a civil engineer, Henry Austin, who worked closely with Chadwick in the Metropolitan Health of Towns Association, married Dickens’s younger sister, Laetitia. Eysell regards this marriage as “a connection of mutual benefit”because Austin could rely on Dickens to “espouse the cause of sanitation reform,”while Dickens could rely on Austin for
“inside information on topics under discussion by the Association.”Dickens even became a member of the Association. Eysell suggests this biographical fact may affirm the belief that Dickens obtained his knowledge and sustained his interest in public health from first-hand expertise and knowledge (Eysell 166–7).
was revealing striking examples of how contemporary events and topics in sanitary reforms were prominently changing the conditions of England. He deeply cultivated the collective feeling for sanitationism and, in return, was actively devoted to the formation of an environmentalist sentiment.
In presenting himself as a political advocate and in enhancing sanitary ideas through his novels, Dickens’contribution to the enhancement of sanitationist medical discourse was twofold. As an active and charismatic speaker, Dickens resorted to the urgency of launching a sanitary reform: “that all the use I have since made of my eyes—or nose [laughter]—that all the information I have since been able to acquire through any of my senses, has strengthened me in the conviction that Searching Sanitary Reform must precedeallothersocialremedies… until the way is paved for their ministrations by Cleanliness and Decency”(Dickens, “Speech”915). Dickens’
remarks expressed an urgent sense of environmental degradation and rated the
demand of sanitary reform as the highest priority among all attempts at social reform.
On the other hand, as a successful and productive writer, Dickens not only had an intense interest in public health but also persuasively applied his knowledge in his writings. With the success of Dickens’novels and his pervasive impact upon his huge readership, he was able to call attention to the problem in “making the middle and upper classes aware of the conditions under which much of the population lived and of their obligation to assist in changing those conditions”(Eysell 159). If the Victorian Age marked the beginning of an awareness of public health, then Dickens’concern with matters of public health as represented in his novels provided a solid ground for the public imagination to materialize.
As one of the most distinguished novelists of his time, Dickens was successful at promoting sales of his novels and provoking an awareness of the pollution of air, water, and food. Dickens expressed his willingness to highlight the importance of
sanitation, as the 1849 preface to Martin Chuzzlewit revealed: “In all my writings, I hope I have taken every available opportunity of showing the want of sanitary improvements in the neglected dwellings of the poor”(720).Most importantly, references to the contemporary scenes are not just projected as backgrounds to his works but recurrently presented with central importance (Ford and Monod 901).4 The synchrony of Dickens’writing with contemporary issues was so rich that readers of Dickens could hardly ignore his acute awareness of the social environment.
Joanne Eysell coins the term “medical realism”after Dickens’depiction of characters and their diseases (11). Eysell argues that by relying on the interpretations of medical professionals, a retrospective diagnosis can be applied to reading Dickens’
works. Although Dickens usually did not name the disease in his works, Eysell argues, readers who perform a retrospective diagnosis based on medical knowledge of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries can determine the diseases as described in the novels (11–3). To determine diseases that tortured fictional characters with only sketchy descriptions of their symptoms remains a highly controversial reading strategy; however, Eysell’s approach provides a helpful adjunct to my sanitationist reading of Dickens. I am of the opinion that whether we can decide the name of diseases is not the point or the purpose of reading Dickens’novels. Even if Dickens described the symptoms of his characters in great clinical detail, it is undeniable that Dickens was writing at the level of fictional creation, instead of writing a diagnosis report. Therefore, applying such a retrospective reading strategy while ignoring or dismissing Dickens’effort to present the structural poverty and pollution in the living
4 George Ford and Sylvère Monod note that the pollution of air, water, and food is the main issue of Bleak House. They compare the time of epidemic outbreaks in England and the time Dickens wrote to emphasize the synchrony of his writing and contemporary issues. Just a year before Dickens expressed his commitment to the promotion of sanitary awareness in the preface to Martin
Chuzzlewit, there was an outbreak of cholera in 1848 that caused 14,600 casualties. In 1853, England suffered from the greatest mortality from smallpox throughout Europe. One year later, Dickens came out with Bleak House, and pollution became the major concern of this novel (Ford and Monod 901).
environment as a whole would miss the point.
It would be risky to diagnose the diseases as described by Dickens. One of my reasons for saying so is that when Dickens was writing, systematic studies of diseases such as cholera or smallpox were still at the preliminary stage, and the causes, effects, and paths of transmission were largely based on speculation. It is not likely that when Dickens was writing, he was aware of the association between symptoms and specific disease. Not to mention that the causes of these diseases were only discovered in the 1880s,decadesafterDickens’writing.The second reason is that if Dickens ever sensed the social responsibility in writing at all, he was writing with an intention to improve the lives of the wretched in general, with no evident intention to target any specific disease. What astonished his readers was the deprivation of the right to lead a life of “Cleanliness and Decency.”Therefore, a sanitationist reading strategy might better illustrate Dickens’intention in foregrounding the degradation of the living environment as a collective misfortune. In this sense, the core of Eysell’s coinage of
“medical realism”should be specified as “sanitationist realism;”that is, an acute awareness of the surrounding environment and the consequences it brought to the characters living in it.
In terms of enhancing a sanitationist medical discourse, Dickens showed
extraordinary sensitivity in his stylish language in building up the association between the outer environment and changes in his characters. At about the same time that Dickens was showing great interest in participating in public debates on public health, his determination to promote the urgency of sanitary reform was expressed in his works. Bleak House, the novel published after the ravages of cholera in 1848–49, was an evident example in its brimming dominant metaphor of the conglomeration of contaminated odors. Thematically speaking, Dickens’descriptions of air pollution, stink from stagnant water, acid smell from factory emissions, and staleness of waste in
this book all intensified the urgency of a sanitationist consciousness: being clean is being healthy, and being dirty is being sick.
Some Dickens scholars have paid attention to the diseases, mostly smallpox, depicted in thisnovel.Such observationscould befurtherelaborated with Dickens’ sanitationist inclination in indicating that smell led to illness, poverty, corruption, and injustice. As Bleak House was concerned with various forms of households and settings, its differing depictions, ranging widely from London slums to the courts, factories, and colleges, all reinforced the coherence of Dickens’sanitationist realism.
Bleak House i
sdominated by Dickens’masterfuldepiction ofsmells,ranging from the smell of “a deadened world”which was “unhealthy for want of air”from Lady Dedlock’shouse(BH 11),theroom with cold and “marshy smell”in which Adacried for her misery (BH 39),theChesney World haunted with the“cold,blank smelllike thesmellofthelittlechurch”thatsuggested “thedead and buried Dedlockswalk there”(BH 3
57),to theculmination offactoriesin Mr.Vholes’soffice. Dickens was attentive to the details of the filth and smell of the environment, as readers find out thatMr.Vholes’schambersareon so smallascale.….A smellasof
inwholesome sheep, blending with the smell of must and dust, is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of mutton fat in candles, and to the fretting of parchment forms and skins in greasy drawers. The
atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. The place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, and the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames have but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to be always dirty, and always shut, unless coerced.
(BH 482)
Dickens’next novel, Hard Times, further advanced his ambition in conjuring up an awareness of bad ventilation and its possible repercussions on the public health and morality. In the beginning of this novel, a passage describing Stone Lodge, the
country residence of the Gradgrinds, forecasted a keen awareness of the living
environment in this novel. Attention was paid not just to the outlook of the house, but also its ventilation, lighting, drainage, and water service of the living environment.
There was an inlaid implicit message of confirming all these elements as indispensable to a balanced and healthy life:
A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the principal windows, as its master’s heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up,
A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the principal windows, as its master’s heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up,