324 SEWAGE AND ITS PURIFICATION 



probably be removed more easily than B. coli. The subject 

 demands further investigation. 



I have already pointed out that, in the contamination of 

 shellfish gathering-grounds and watercress beds, sewage and 

 sewage effluents are not always in fault, and that some of the 

 other occasional polluting matters, being more recent, are more 

 dangerous in character. The L.C.C. Watercress Report, just 

 noticed, specifies beds polluted by cattle, by house drainage, 

 by trade effluents, adjacent farms and stables, and " occasional 

 deposit of human excreta near the intake." In my inspection 

 of the Medway fisheries I found that no adequate sanitary 

 provision was made for the men engaged in the industries, and, 

 as I should surmise in other fisheries, local contamination may 

 arise from this cause. Evidence before the Royal Commission 

 on Sewage as to another locality stated that " a large number 

 of barges after unloading refuse pump out the offensive and 

 highly polluted bilge water into the creek," and the oysters in 

 the neighbourhood are found to be infected although there is 

 no discharge of sewage in the vicinity. 



In an analogous case within my own experience, oysters 

 from a laying far from any source of sewage pollution had been 

 condemned independently by Dr. Klein and by myself, and it 

 appeared that some other form of contamination must be 

 present. On an inspection I found in a creek joining the 

 channel a heap of about 5,000 tons of town refuse which had 

 been discharged partly below high-water mark, and was drain- 

 ing into the creek, and another screened heap about half the 

 size near by. Other objectionable cargoes were also being 

 unloaded on the banks. In a case that has just occurred 

 where crabs were condemned, and were reported to be " swarm- 

 ing with organisms which would cause serious illness," it was 

 suggested that they had been contaminated by the flooding of 

 a barge while being brought to London. 



If the damage, on the other hand, is clearly traced to the 

 sewage, the remedy lies at law. The sequel to the Emsworth 

 outbreak of typhoid has been an action^ by the owner of the 

 beds for an injunction to restrain the District Council from 

 placing or maintaining their sewage outfalls in the neighbourhood 

 of his oyster beds, and from delivering sewage on the said 

 foreshore so as to contaminate the same, and to render the 

 oysters liable to be infected and unsafe for food, with damages 



^ Foster v. The Warblington Urban District Council, Dec. to Jan., 1905. 



