People
in London in the mid-nineteenth century greatly feared cholera. At
this time doctors...........(believed) that cholera ......... (circulated)
through the air, and ..........(did not realize) that all the time raw
sewage .........(was entering) water supply, and that the disease
........(spread) through the domestic water system. Although in the 17th
and 18th centuries London ....... (possessed) a water supply system and a
sewage system which were the changing situation. Broken water pipes and
sewage pipes often ......(flew) into one another, and most sewage
.........(ended up) in the River Thames, which was the main source of
drinking water for thousands. Between 1831 and 1867 a series of severe
outbreaks .........(occured). In the outbreak of 1848-49, there were over
30000 cases of the disease in London, and 15000 people ..........(died).
By the mid 1860s the situation .........(had improved) mainly because by then
engineers ........(had been working on) the construction of a completely new sewage
system, which they .........(completed) in 1875, and which is still in
use today.