An investigation into the relationship between rapid urbanisation and typhoid fever: focusing on Prahran and its developing natural, settlement and disease ecologies in the nineteenth-century

© 2011 Natasha Lee SzuhanFocusing on the natural, settlement and disease ecologies, I present the story of how typhoid fever came to be a major threat to health and life in Prahran between 1865-95. Typhoid was dubbed Melbourne’s ‘special shame’ because it was universally understood to be an affliction of depressed health and living conditions – which flourished throughout greater Melbourne during the nineteenth-century. I will present the way rapid urbanisation – prompted by proximity to the instant city that was founded in Melbourne following the 1851 discovery of gold – increased Prahran’s disease burden. The region that became known as the ‘Dismal Swamp’ was one of Prahran’s largest and best-known bogs. Located between Gardiner’s Creek, Commercial, and Punt Roads and Chapel Street, the site remained relatively undeveloped until the 1870’s, after which necessity for land overcame physical reasons not to build up the area. From the 1850s until the twentieth-century, the block experienced drainage, filth accumulation and slum problems. Prahran was a product of the two nineteenth-century boom periods in Victoria’s history. Between the 1850s and 1880s houses, shops and factories were established throughout the municipality. The topography and class discrepancies that developed in Prahran meant that there were vastly different living conditions and exposure to unhealthy environments. When Prahran’s population spiked, overcrowding, flooding, and filth accumulation problems developed. Over the century living standards deteriorated, as housing and infrastructure creation could not keep up with demand, and waste was not handled effectively. In places where water and filth accumulated stench became an unbearable problem. The result of the combined natural, settlement and disease ecologies in Prahran was an increased instance of infection. Typhoid was the filth disease that most impacted the Victorian colony. The result of the combinations of topographic, class and filth issues in the vicinity of Prahran was that after 1870 disease flourished. Typhoid swept through the suburb with increasing frequency and impact after that time, reaching epidemic proportions and finally prompting action that would see the instant city nature of the colony transition to a more settled and tempered development. The story of the settlement, pollution and eventually the Government mandated clean up of greater Melbourne during the nineteenth-century, will be examined using Prahran as the focus