136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



Typhoid Fever, and have sometimes been able to attribute 

 the cause with great reason to water suppHes. The 

 recent experience at Hamburg has also shed light upon 

 the origin of Cholera from water. In England the water 

 that has been the cause of Typhoid has always been a 

 small local supply, if we make the one exception of the 

 water of the River Tees which was reported to have 

 caused a prevalence of Typhoid in the Tees Valley. The 

 report of this outbreak made by Dr Barry has led to 

 a controversy with a doubtful result up to the present 

 time. That the water may have caused the disease by 

 some accidental fouling is possible or even probable, but 

 that the whole of the water of the Tees was affected by 

 Typhoid bacteria derived from a very small amount 

 of possible pollution at a point nearly 20 miles above 

 where the water was removed for drinking as suggested 

 by Dr Barry is an idea that cannot be entertained. 

 Professor Koch has attributed an outbreak of Typhoid 

 Fever at Altona to imperfect filtration of the waters of the 

 River Elbe, which, however, is known to be in a very 

 highly polluted condition at the intake of the Water 

 Company. The recent Cholera Epidemic at Hamburg no 

 doubt had origin in the water of the Elbe, which is a 

 tidal river at Hamburg, and receives the whole of the 

 sewage of that large city and its suburbs. The history of 

 the Cholera Epidemic at Hamburg and the escape in this 

 instance of Altona proves at one and the same time the 

 danger of drinking the strongly polluted water of a river, 

 and also the saving efficacy of filtration in removing the 

 organisms of disease from water. The story may be told 

 in Koch's own words : 



" The three towns of Hamburg, Altona, and Warjsbeck 

 " are contiguous to each other, and really form a single 

 " community, and only differ in so far as each has a 

 " separate and a different kind of water supply. Wansbeck 

 " obtained filtered water from a lake. Hamburg obtained 



