MUNICIPAL HYGIENE. i35 



remain entirely wholesome and incapable of spreading disease. The 

 radius of infection was likely to be very circumscribed. In cities, on 

 the other hand, where the persons resorting to a particular well might 

 be very numerous,* the contamination of a single source could lead to 

 disease and death, not merely in one or two families but in scores of 

 families. Again, the greater liability to contamination to which a well 

 in a densely settled region was exposed was an added menace and en- 

 hanced the peril to the city dweller from this source. The introduction 

 of general public water supplies lessened to a considerable extent the 

 latter evil and placed the city resident in a more advantageous position. 

 The public water supply of large towns became on the whole purer 

 than the water formerly obtainable by the private citizen, and since the 

 supply was often brought from some distance, it was not liable to in- 

 creased pollution as a direct consequence of the increase in the density 

 of the city population. But on the other hand, the introduction of the 

 public supply increased the danger from diffusion. Far greater num- 

 bers of people were affected. If the public supply became infected 

 with a specific disease germ, the germ was distributed among much 

 wider circles, and the infection became a momentous matter to the 

 whole community. This in turn had the natural result that the atten- 

 tion formerly directed by the more intelligent members of the com- 

 munity to the care of their own private water supplies was now turned 

 towards the public supply, and the problems of expert selection, super- 

 vision and control of the public supply began to receive the attention 

 they deserved. There remained in many municipalities, however, so 

 much inertia that this obvious duty was neglected or abandoned to the 

 tender mercies of greedy politicians. 



The conditions in many parts of the United States at the present 

 day testify eloquently to the existence of this transition stage. In those 

 sections, however, where it is the rule for proper care to be taken of 

 the public water supplies the city death rate from typhoid fever is 

 low, often lower in fact than in the surrounding country districts. 

 In the year 1900, for instance, the typhoid fever death rate in the 

 thickly populated 'Maritime District' of New York State, comprising 

 chiefly the territory of Greater New York, with a population density 

 of 1,535 per square mile, was only 2.0 per 10,000 inhabitants, while in 

 the sparsely settled 'Adirondacks and Northern' district, with a popu- 

 lation per square mile of 26, the reported death rate from typhoid 

 fever was almost twice as great (3.9). 



Theoretically, at least, the city ought to possess a decided advantage 

 over the country in the matter of water supply. It ought to be pos- 

 sible for a large city to place its public supply under expert and special- 

 ized control, thus averting from the ignorant and careless members of 



* At least 137 persons were known to have drunk water from tlie Broad 

 Street pump shortly before the outbreak of cholera in 1854. 



