10 



" stage of contamination has been utterly unfit for drinking. 

 " The List mentioned evil deserves very particuhar atten- 

 " tion,yor the danger to health occasioned by the con- 

 " sumption of polluted water, is, in our opinion, infi- 

 " nitely greater than any danger which the effluvia of 

 '^ polluted water can occasion. Water, tainted but very 

 '^ slightly with sewage, may determine terrible outbreaks 

 " of disease* among the popidations lohich drink of it ; and, 

 " although in such cases as that of Manchester (where the 

 " water is grossly and offensively foul), there is little 

 " chance that people will drink that water, yet in cases 

 " of less obvious contamination, tainted water is, perhaps, 

 " extensively drunk. Such water, supplied by Water 

 " Companies, has, in various cases, been suspected, or 

 " proved to have determined, on a very large scale, the 

 " distribution of cholera deaths during times of epidemic 

 " visitation ; as in our South London districts, during 

 " the two last epidemics of cholera ; f at other times it 

 '* has, probably, exerted equal influence, in determin- 

 " ing the distribution of deaths from ordinary diarrhccal 

 " diseases ; and on various occasions it has been shown, 

 " that what to the common eye is an inappreciable 

 '^ pollution of water by sewage, may yet imply very 

 " serious dangers of infection for the persons who consume 

 " such water. On these grounds, seeing that brooks and 

 " rivers are almost universally the sources from which 

 " Water Companies derive their supplies for large urban 

 " populations, we deem it to be of essential importance to 

 " the public health, that the running icaters of the country 

 " should be strictly protected from p)ollutionJ''' 



Among other conclusions they arrived at, the Com- 

 missioners, at page 39, submitted the following : — 



" That this condition of rivers is a public and national 



* As foi' example: cholera outbreak in ISo-i in the Broad Street, 

 Golden Square, District. 

 Fevers, &c., at Kotherham, 1862-4, [vide INIemorial of Rotherham 



Board of Health, pai^e 18.] 

 Cholera — East London, 1800. 

 Typhoid fever at Guildford, Sept., 1807. [Vide Dr. Buchanan's 



'Report to Privy Council, pages 39 and 40.] 

 Do. do. at Terlin'g, Dec, Jan., Feb., 1807-8. [Vide Dr. Thome's 



lleport to Privy Council, pages 40—42.] 

 Do. do. at Marine Barracks, Stonehouse (Plymouth), Dec. 1807, 

 in -which case seven marines died — water from veil strongly 

 suspected. Vide extract from Lancet, page 43. 

 t Of 1848-y and 1853-4. 



