King CholeraThis 1852 drawing from Punch tells volumes about the unhealthy living conditions of the urban poor. In the foreground, children play with a dead rat and a woman scavenges a dung heap. Cheap rooming houses provide shelter for the frightfully overcrowded population. Such conditions and contaminated water spread deadly cholera epidemics throughout Europe in the 1800s. (© The British Library Board, P.P. 5270 vol 23, 139)