It was common at the time to have a cesspit under most homes. Most families tried to have their raw sewage collected and dumped in the Thames to prevent their cesspit from filling faster than the sewage could decompose into the soil. Thomas Shapter had conducted similar studies and used a point-based map for the study of cholera in Exeter, seven years before John Snow, although this did not identify the water supply problem that was later held responsible. Political controversy After the cholera epidemic had subsided, government officials replaced the Broad Street pump handle. They had responded only to the urgent threat posed to the population, and afterward they rejected Snow's theory. To accept his proposal would have meant indirectly accepting the fecal-oral route of disease transmission, which was too unpleasant for most of the public to contemplate. It was not until 1866 that William Farr, one of Snow's chief opponents, realised the validity of his diagnosis when investigating another outbreak of cholera at Bromley by Bow and issued immediate orders that unboiled water was not to be drunk. Farr denied Snow's explanation of how exactly the contaminated water spread cholera, although he did accept that water had a role in the spread of the illness. In fact, some of the statistical data that Farr collected helped promote John Snow's views. Public health officials recognise the political struggles in which reformers have often become entangled. During the Annual Pumphandle Lecture in England, members of the John Snow Society remove and replace a pump handle to symbolise the continuing challenges for advances in public health. Personal life Snow became a vegetarian at the age of 17 and was a teetotaller. He embraced an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet by supplementing his vegetables with dairy products and eggs. On this diet he excelled at swimming. He later became a vegan. In the mid-1840s, his health deteriorated and he suffered a renal disorder which he attributed to his vegan diet so he took up meat-eating and drinking wine. He continued drinking pure water (via boiling) throughout his adult life. He never married. In 1830, Snow became a member of the temperance movement. In 1845, he became a member of York Temperance Society. After his health declined it was only about 1845 that he consumed a little wine to aid digestion. Snow lived at 18 Sackville Street, London, from 1852 to his death in 1858.