VIII. NORTH STREET (JOHN SNOW)

North Street is the birth place of Dr John Snow in March 1813, who is well-known for the discovery that the disease cholera was waterborne. With cholera spreading at an alarming rate across Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the people of York feared an epidemic engulfing their city. A man called Thomas Hughes, a ferry worker, is believed to be the first case of cholera in York having been diagnosed by the apothecary of the dispensary on 2nd June 1832. In the following three months there were 450 recorded cases resulting in approximately 185 deaths, with the area of North Street being one of the worst affected. Subsequently there was much civil unrest amongst the poor of the city as tensions and fear levels rose. Unknown to the poor was the waterborne nature of the disease, and they instead believed that a plot had been hatched by local doctors and gentry to do away with them. Riots nearly broke out here, on North Street, over the frequency of cholera victim hearses leading to residents threatening to throw both hearse and driver into the river. These threats were rooted in the belief that the mere sight of a hearse transporting a cholera victims body was sufficient to infect them with the disease. ​