White Fred Merrick

The River of Death White Fred Merrick

Another in the "Doom of London" series, in which the author sounds a clarion call of potential disasters that may fall upon the great city. Here he relates a tale of environmental contamination leading to a medical panic. London in a year of severe drought; water level in the Thames river extremely low, blazing heat wave for 3 weeks in August; a Portuguese cargo ship sinks and contaminates a tributary of the Thames; 3 of the crew members are discovered to be dying of some disease; the local doctor is frightened by what he sees, calls the health authorities, who call for help from Professor Darbyshire, a scientist who deals with "fighting diseases in the bulk", someone we might call an environmental epidemiologist today; he investigates, then ...