228 The Future Water-supply of London. [April, 



cause of the disease. Some of the most striking were adduced by 

 Dr. Frankland, in the admirable paper which he contributed to this 

 Journal in July, 1867. To the cases there quoted may be added 

 the frightful sporadic outbreak at Theydon Bois, in Essex, in the 

 autumn of 1865, where nine persons out of a famOy of twelve, 

 including servants and a visitor, died of the disease in a few days, 

 and where it was distinctly proved that the first patient, and some 

 of the others in turn, had fi'om a defect in the sewage arrangements 

 caused a contamination of the well-water. 



The history of the epidemic in Newcastle in 1853, quoted l)y 

 Dr. Farr, is not less instructive. But it must be understood that 

 these numerous instances would be overstrained if we argued from 

 them that choleraic water was the sole cause of cholera. Other 

 causes, no doubt, are efficient in many cases for the propagation of 

 the disease. Contact with cholera patients ; the washing of their , 

 clothes ; dust impregnated with choleraic discharges ;* and the noxious 

 emanations of sewer gases, have all been traced as causes in cases 

 where water could not have been concerned. Dr. Macphersonf 

 quotes the case of the Baltic fleet, in which distilled water only 

 was used, and in which a violent epidemic took place ; and in his 

 lucid Keport on Cholera m Southampton, in 1866,t Dr. Parkes excul- 

 pates the water-supply altogether, and succeeds in fixing the stigma 

 upon the exhalations from a large volume of sewage which was 

 being pumped through an open conduit at the time. This case is 

 the more important, because the number of deaths reached a total 

 of over 20 to 10,000 of the population, and because a similar 

 cause is alleged by Mr. Orton as conducing to the epidemic in East 

 London. 



In all these dissimilar cases, however, there is one common 

 circumstance to be noted, and to that the communication of the 

 disease is almost invariably to be ascribed. The dejections of 

 the sick, whether carried by air, water, or direct contact, have 

 undoubtedly the power of infection ; and the elaborate researches 

 of the last few years have illustrated the cause of this power m 

 a most remarkable manner. The zymotic theory of cholera — that 

 theory which traces the origin of the disease to the presence and 

 development in the intestinal canal of some peculiar form of 

 organized matter— has for the last twenty yeare had many 

 adherents, and the evidence of observation and experiment in 

 support of it has increased materially of late, and has acquired a 

 very high value. The subject is not one for a chemist to dwell 

 upon, but it is impossible to avoid a shght reference to it here, as 

 it lies at the root of the question of the safety of river water. Those 



* Pr. Miulgo, 'Med. Times and Gaz.,' May 18, 1867. 

 t ' Med. Times nnd Caz.,' July 13, 1867. 

 X ' Ninth Report to Privy Council,' p. 244. 



