INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND MICROBES, ETC. 223 



merest accident of one workman suffering from 

 typhoid fever, who went down into the well and 

 worked there a few hours, and defiled the well, thus 

 contaminating hundreds of millions of gallons of 

 water which were pumped out and distributed to 

 the townspeople round about, four hundred cases of 

 typhoid fever followed the next week, and seventy 

 or eighty deaths occurred in consequence ' (Hogg). 

 Certainly this instance proves that water is a source 

 of infection ; but potable water is more frequently 

 contaminated by the excreta of patients suffering 

 from typhoid fever ; and when such is the case, an 

 epidemic of typhoid fever is the result of drinking 

 such water. In 1874, an epidemic of this disease 

 broke out at Over-Darwen, when 2035 persons were 

 attacked, which terminated in 104 deaths. The 

 outbreak was traced to the water supply. In 1884, 

 a similar epidemic broke out at Zurich j 1 the origin 

 of which was traced to the water of the river 

 Limmat having been polluted with sewage contain- 

 ing typhoid-fever dejecta. 



Epidemics of typhoid fever have also occurred at 

 Florence, 2 Vienna, Home, Naples, etc., which have 

 been traced to potable waters having been contami- 

 nated with the evacuations of typhoid- fever patients. 3 



1 Revue d* Hygiene, 1885. 



8 Tommasi-Crudeli in Istituto di Anat. Patologico (Turin), 

 1882, p. 154. 



3 See also Thome's Reports to Medical Officer of Local Govern- 

 ment Board, 1880, et seq. ; Cassedebat in Comptes Rendus de 

 VAcademie des Sciences, vol. ex., and Annales de VImtitut 

 Pasteur, 1890 ; Giglioli's Fermenti e Microbi, pp. 268-282 ; Dr. 

 E. Frankland's Experimental Researches in Pure, Applied, and 



