I Became A Hidden Powerhouse Of The British Empire [EN]: Chapter 209

< The Great Plague (2) >

Bewilderment, anxiety, disarray.

The usual yet unusual scene in the assembly.

“No, I mean, shouldn’t we just blockade the districts? According to Professor John Snow, the source of the cholera is likely in the Soho area. Why not just blockade it?”

“If all the patients came from there, we might consider a blockade, but that’s not the case. Patients keep appearing elsewhere. If we blockade the area and the cholera doesn’t stop, will the opposition take responsibility?”

“No… Ugh. Still, we need to show that we’re taking some action. If the assembly or the government appears to be doing nothing, anxiety will skyrocket. Prime Minister! Don’t you have any measures?”

“I was just about to discuss that matter today.”

No matter how divided the ruling and opposition parties usually were, engaging in fierce political battles, they weren’t so extreme as to do so even during a difficult epidemic.

Although they still argued, it was quite pleasing to see everyone seriously discussing and seeking solutions to resolve this situation.

That’s how the assembly should operate. Indeed.

“By the way, I heard His Highness will be speaking at the assembly today. Is it related to the cholera outbreak?”

“Yes, it is. It would be quicker for the person in question to explain it themselves rather than me. Your Highness, please speak.”

As Wellesley pointed at me, the attention of all the assembly members naturally turned towards me.

I nodded once and walked to the center, getting straight to the point without any unnecessary rhetoric.

“As the cholera situation is rapidly escalating, I will cut to the chase and explain why I am here. I request that you enact a special law immediately, designating me as the chief director of the cholera prevention efforts.”

“Excuse me?”

“I will briefly explain from now on.”

“Wait, just a moment! I have heard that Your Highness has been directing the medical staff to investigate the cholera separately. Have you had any success?”

I could feel the shock in the chamber.

They must think I suddenly came and started spouting nonsense.

Some assembly members were even cleaning their ears, wondering if they had misheard, but of course, they hadn’t.

“I was going to explain that part first, but this works too. Professor John Snow is currently mobilizing a large number of detectives from the detective agency to investigate the entire London area and hospital patients. And we are almost at the stage of identifying the source and cause of the cholera.”

“Is that true?”

“If I wasn’t confident, I wouldn’t have come to this place, would I? Now that the cause of the problem has been identified, wouldn’t it be a national waste to unnecessarily disperse administrative power? So, from now on, I will direct the health committee and authorities to block the cholera.”

“The source of the cholera has been identified? Was it Soho after all? Then, are you planning to blockade that area and all the districts connected to it…?”

Until medicine advanced, the most effective and common way to prevent epidemics was to blockade areas.

However, this method was only effective until the Middle Ages. Locking down a large city like London would cause too much damage.

“No. There is a much more effective method than a blockade. Once the data is further organized, I will present it in an easy-to-understand manner. I will provide a more detailed explanation later in front of the medical staff of the health committee.”

“Still, shouldn’t we know at least some information before we enact a special law?”

“You are right. Explaining the detailed data is the job of the working-level staff, but that doesn’t mean I won’t explain it at all. First of all, it is certain that cholera is not transmitted by bad odors [Miasma theory]. The most likely cause is food. Among them, to have such a rapid transmission rate, it is likely water that is not limited to specific people.”

“…Water?”

“Water is the cause of cholera transmission? Ha, but Your Highness! If water is really the cause, then… doesn’t that not make sense in the first place?”

Even though it was my own words, the atmosphere inside was still full of disbelief.

In modern times, it is common knowledge that cholera can easily spread through water, but to the people of that time, it was as difficult to accept as the medieval belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

I could explain it step by step, but that would take too much time.

In this situation, it is best to simply show the results.

“Whether it makes sense or not, you will know when you see it. Professor John Snow will summon the entire health committee for a detailed briefing in two days at the latest. I urge all of you to come and listen to the story.”

“Your Highness! If Your Highness takes the lead, how quickly can you resolve this situation?”

“I will produce meaningful results in no more than half a month.”

I originally wanted to say a week, but considering how things could turn out, I generously doubled the period.

However, even this was an unconventional period in the 19th-century society trembling in fear of cholera, so everyone looked at me with skepticism, wondering if I was serious.

“Your Highness… I know you are confident, but half a month? Isn’t that too unrealistic…?”

“Rather, if we can’t make a difference within half a month, the number of patients will increase uncontrollably. And have you ever seen me say something I can’t take responsibility for?”

“That’s… true.”

“If things go wrong, I will take responsibility. And I plan to allocate additional expenses in addition to the budget currently allocated to the authorities. I would appreciate it if you could reflect that in the bill as well.”

“Your Highness! But the budget for this year has already been allocated. I’m sorry, but to draw more budget, we need to go through a separate procedure…”

Oh, these frustrating people. When have I ever asked for the assembly’s permission to spend money?

I asked Palmerston, who was cautiously raising objections, in a dumbfounded tone.

“When did I ever ask the parliament for a budget?”

“Yes? But you said you would reflect it in the bill…”

“I will pay for the additional expenses myself if necessary. Then there will be no complaints, right?”

If I whine to the government to allocate additional budget, it will take time, and they will claim their share, saying they also contributed.

Why are people who couldn’t come up with any measures trying to subtly freeload?

Besides, even at this moment, there must be more than a few people suffering from cholera, so there is no time to waste on unnecessary procedures.

“As this is an urgent matter, I would appreciate it if you could proceed to a vote immediately.”

Who would object to me cleaning up London’s poop with my own money?

On the condition that I would take all responsibility if things went wrong, the assembly eventually accepted my proposal.

And taking all responsibility when things go wrong means, in other words.

It’s no different from me monopolizing all the credit when successful.

There is something to gain if there is something to lose.

This is an unchanging principle of the world.

* * *

Having been temporarily appointed as the chief director of London’s health, I immediately summoned the entire health committee and held a meeting.

In the meantime, John Snow and Nightingale mobilized all the employees of the James Detective Agency to search almost all hospitals in London and collect all the data.

It was an enormous task to collect all the data in this era without Excel or Word, but thanks to the seasoned detectives, it took them only a day to compile all this data.

“The number of deaths identified so far is 523. The number of patients is 2124.”

“The transmission speed is incredibly fast.”

“Still, it’s almost certain at this point. Everyone, please pay attention to this map.”

The map that John Snow had perfectly completed with the help of the detectives.

The areas where cholera patients occurred were marked with black bars, and these black bars showed a prominent tendency in certain areas.

The directors of the main committee and the participating assembly members exclaimed excitedly.

“Soho Street was right after all!”

“Yes. Looking at this map, you can clearly see that the source of the cholera is Soho Street. But we need to know exactly what in Soho Street caused this situation. This is a graph compiled by Nightingale, who is working as Professor John Snow’s assistant. It’s so easy to understand that it’s admirable, isn’t it?”

Nightingale, whose reputation for making significant contributions to the visualization of statistical data in the original history, once again revealed her talent without reservation.

She marked the number of deaths from cholera by area and differentiated the colors according to which company’s pump was used for drinking water.

And when we looked at the data organized in this way, there were two companies that stood out so much that anyone could easily see it.

Among them, the most noticeable company was undoubtedly the Southwark and Vauxhall water supply company.

By showing the statistics so that anyone could understand, and visualizing those statistics, not a single objection was raised that there might be something else.

This was because the cholera incidence rate among people who used the water from that water company’s pump was close to 100%.

Moreover, footnotes were already added to the bottom of the statistical table so that a few exceptional cases could not be used as counterarguments.

“Now, as everyone has seen, all the current cholera patients have used the water from the Southwark and Vauxhall company’s pump as drinking water. The reason why people who lived quite far from Soho contracted cholera was because of that. They didn’t live in Soho, but they got their drinking water from that company’s pump. And the families who lived near that pump but didn’t contract cholera were able to avoid this disaster because they were separately supplied with beer from the company, as noted in the footnotes below.”

“My God…”

“Cholera wasn’t really spreading through bad odors?”

“Was this something that could be determined so easily?”

Experts who had believed in the miasma theory until now and treated John Snow as a quack were checking the data over and over again like people possessed by ghosts.

However, the data used to create the statistics remained as the original, so there was no room to find fault.

Nightingale’s visual reconstruction of these data to make them easy to see at a glance was also a great help.

This is because people react much more sensitively to one-dimensional visual stimuli such as pictures or areas than to looking at numbers and checking them one by one.

“Then everyone. Now that you have fully understood the situation, I will explain the measures we will take from now on. We will immediately block the water provided by Southwark and Vauxhall and Lambeth, which are suspected to be the cause of the cholera outbreak.”

“Your Highness! But the… the water supply companies are likely to strongly resist.”

“If it is concluded that the water from these two companies is not related to the cholera outbreak, I will compensate them for all the damages caused by the water cutoff. Then they won’t be able to complain anymore, right?”

“…If that’s the case…”

“And add that if they don’t want to be blamed for spreading cholera throughout London by spraying contaminated water, they should fully cooperate.”

If they still don’t understand after I’ve said it this nicely, then there’s nothing I can do.

I’ll have to show them a performance of smashing the pump with my own hands to make them come to their senses.

“…Um, Your Highness.”

“Yes? Miss Nightingale, do you have anything else to say? Your contribution this time was also very significant. My judgment in making you Professor John Snow’s assistant was not wrong after all.”

“Thank you! But I have something urgent to say about the pump cutoff…”

“Do you mean there are more than those two companies that supply contaminated water?”

“No. That’s not it. But before I could say that there was no need to cut off the pump, Your Highness announced it first…”

What is she talking about again? We need to immediately cut off the water from the companies that supply contaminated drinking water, so does she mean we should just stand by and watch?

“I don’t understand what you’re saying?”

“Ah, I mean, there’s no need to cut off the pump. I already did it.”

“…?”

What? What did you say?

As I stared at her with a dumbfounded expression, John Snow, who was next to her, shouted urgently with his mouth wide open.

“Nightingale! What are you talking about! Didn’t you say you had received permission from His Highness!”

“Um, John Snow? What is all this about?”

“Your Highness! It’s not me. I don’t know anything about it. I thought Your Highness had given permission, so…”

“So, calm down and explain.”

“As soon as we were sure that the cause of the cholera was the pumps of those two companies, Nightingale immediately went to meet the company officials to cut off the drinking water coming from there. Of course, they refused to admit it without evidence. So… Nightingale took a hammer and smashed all the pumps…”

Oh, my God.

I must have temporarily forgotten about the anecdote about this white-clad berserker.

Well, there’s no way this life-supremacist would have left the evil object that was eating away at people’s lives alone.

“But what do you mean you received my permission?”

Even so, if she sold the name of the royal family and lied, the matter could become serious.

I asked with some concern, but our Florence Nightingale blinked as if wondering what I was talking about and asked back.

“Didn’t Your Highness give permission a long time ago? That if it’s to save people’s lives, we can take action first and report later.”

No, that… if you put it that way, I have nothing to say.

I felt a slight headache as I looked at John Snow, who was shining his eyes with admiration, and Nightingale, who proudly shrugged her shoulders.

…Well, it was urgent, so let’s just laugh, laugh.

Cheers! At least we reduced the number of patients, right?

It’s a grave I dug myself in the first place, so what can I do?