Cholera epidemic of 1892

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Cholera barracks in Hamburg 1892

The cholera epidemic in Hamburg in 1892 was the last major cholera outbreak in Germany . Due to Hamburg's peculiarities, it was devastating. The epidemic broke out during a hot summer. The level of the Elbe was low and the river water was unusually warm. Since the Senate and the citizenship could not agree on the construction of a filter system for decades, the Hamburg drinking water was taken from the Elbe without being purified; the tapping point two kilometers upstream was exposed to the polluted sewage water during high tide. In neighboring Altona , which belonged to Prussia and had a sand filter system for drinking water, far fewer people fell ill during the epidemic than in Hamburg. Hamburg also had the highest proportion of unhealthy basement apartments of all major German cities , and in the city center people clustered in a very small space under unsanitary conditions. The well-known bacteriologist Robert Koch , who was called for help, commented on the conditions on the tour through the Gängeviertel : “I have never encountered such unhealthy apartments, plague caves and breeding grounds for every infection as in the so-called Gängeviertel that I was shown, at the harbor Steinstrasse, on Spitalerstrasse or on Niedernstrasse. [...] I forget that I am in Europe. "

procedure

The communal toilets with no connection to the sewer system encouraged the spread of cholera
Disinfection columns with chlorinated lime to kill the cholera pathogens
Follow-up building "Schwarze Bude" (housing for cholera grave diggers),
Ohlsdorf cemetery
Memorial stone for the victims of cholera,
Ohlsdorf cemetery

Minor cholera epidemics struck Hamburg as early as 1822, 1831, 1832, 1848, 1859, 1866 and 1873 . Infected people from the endemic areas in Russia probably also reached the port city in 1892. Apparently it came to the contamination of the central water supply with feces and cholera vibrio . On August 14, 1892, the first patient, a sewer worker named Sahling, was hospitalized with severe diarrhea and vomiting and died shortly afterwards. Another three people died of cholera on August 21. Initially, the Senate was not very concerned because the disease was thought to be cholera nostras ( salmonella enteritis ), which occurred every summer. Out of consideration for the economy, the deaths were hidden and no action was taken. Even after the outbreak of the disease, emigrant ships were issued health safety certificates against their better judgment, so that the cholera reached New York this way.

The number of sick people increased exponentially . On August 22, 1,100 hamburgers had contracted the disease and 455 died. The population began to get restless and many people left the city.

Dissatisfied with the hesitant decision-making process of the Senate, the Reich government appointed a Reich Commissioner for health care in the Elbe river basin. As a first measure, the port was completely cordoned off. On August 24, 1892, Robert Koch , the head of the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases, arrived as a representative of the Reich government . As early as 1884 he published that drinking water contaminated with the pathogen he had discovered transmits cholera. Koch has now publicly confirmed the outbreak of cholera in Hamburg. On his orders, the schools there were closed and meetings prohibited. All traffic with Hamburg came to a standstill and trade came to a standstill. The Blohm & Voss shipyard closed its repair business.

125 workers worked day and night shifts to dig graves at the Ohlsdorf cemetery . The Medicinal Authority issued slips of paper with rules of conduct and distributed them to the population, also using the distribution system of the Social Democratic Party . Barrel wagons distributed boiled water, breweries made their deep wells available. The police set up improvised disinfection points in empty dance halls, gyms and train stations. The Hamburg waterworks hastily started building a drinking water filtration system on the Elbe island of Kaltehofe .

After ten weeks, the number of new cases decreased. A total of 16,956 people fell ill and 8,605 died during the epidemic. As a memento, the so-called Hygieia fountain was set up in the courtyard at the opening of the Hamburg City Hall .

consequences

  • On December 28, 1892, the Institute for Hygiene and Environment was founded in Hamburg .
  • The Gängeviertel were completely renovated or demolished.
  • New laws against the building of unsanitary housing were passed.
  • The filtration plant of the Hamburg waterworks on Kaltehofe was completed in 1893.
  • Hamburg got a waste incineration plant , which was built in 1893 as Germany's first plant on Bullerdeich. Trial operations began in 1894, and regular operations began in 1896.
  • A constitutional amendment meant that larger parts of the population were involved in shaping politics.
  • The hygienic conditions in the intermediate decks of the passenger ships were improved, and from 1901 the barracks were replaced by the emigration halls on the Veddel.
  • In the upstream emigration station in Ruhleben near Berlin, the transport companies set up a disinfection facility after Bremen and Hamburg threatened to completely block their urban area for emigrants. The Bremen and Hamburg Senates decided to only embark emigrants from Ruhleben with a medical inspection card.
  • On April 1, 1893, the office of port doctor was newly created and Bernhard Nocht was appointed to this position.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Cholera Epidemic of 1892  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cholera - epidemic history , information from the health authorities Dachau and Garmisch
  2. ^ Richard J. Evans: Death in Hamburg , p. 374.
  3. ↑ a b Hygiene Institute Hamburg 2003: Cholera in Hamburg 1892 (PDF 7.7 MB)
  4. ^ Richard J. Evans: Tod in Hamburg , p. 402ff.
  5. ↑ Charles E. Closmann: Swirling currents. Environmental pollution and political tradition in Hamburg 1900–1933. In: Hamburg Economic Chronicle, New Series, Volume 1 (2000), edited by Sven Tode and Frank Hatje, on behalf of the Wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Forschungsstelle e. V., Verlag Hanseatischer Merkur, Hamburg 2000, ISSN  0436-7030 , p. 137 ff
  6. ↑ “In Hamburg several thousand people died of cholera within the first 14 days after the outbreak of the epidemic (the number of cholera victims buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery was 14,530 on September 5, 1892!), While there were still countless thousands remained ill with it. ”wrote Johannes Thomas from Riesa in our home. 5th year, no. 43, page 3, Riesa, October 8, 1932 with the source: “Elbeblatt und Anzeiger”, 45th year, 1892.
  7. ^ Arne Hengsbach: Station of the European women. The history of the emigration station in Ruhleben. In: Mitteilungen des Verein für die Geschichte Berlins , 70th year, 1974, p. 424 ( PDF file ).