INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND MICROBES, ETC. 233 



disease, potable water is one of the most convenient 

 vehicles for the distribution of the comma bacillus. 

 If the dejecta of one or more choleraic patients 

 contaminate a water supply, the water becomes a 

 medium for spreading the disease. Such are the 

 conclusions of Koch, Macnamara, 1 and many other 

 observers. 'In India, in the regions in which 

 cholera is endemic, the wells, as a rule, are merely 

 surface tanks into which sewage and surface water 

 may be drained, and which are frequently on the 

 same level as, and connected with, the cesspools, 

 so that even the water supply contains a consider- 

 able quantity of organic matter in which organisms 

 of all kinds can flourish most luxuriantly; whilst 

 these same wells, being merely dug-out pits beneath 

 the slightly raised houses, are open for the recep- 

 tion of sewage and excreta of all kinds, especially 

 in times of illness, when neither patients nor nurses 

 have strength or time to see these are properly 

 removed.' The recent epidemics of cholera in 

 India, Spain, Japan, 2 and other countries, have been 

 traced to the water supply ; 3 and it is stated that 

 the epidemic of 1884 killed 80,000 persons in Spain 

 alone. 4 But it may be stated ' that with all the 

 improvements that have been made in the drainage 

 system and water supply of Lower Bengal, cholera 



1 British Medical Journal, 1884, p. 502. 



2 An epidemic of cholera or korera-byo (as the Japanese call 

 it) occurred in Japan in 1890, and there were 13,141 deaths out 

 of 21,116 cases (vide Sir Edwin Arnold's Seas and Lands 

 [1891], p. 474). 



3 Lancet, 1885, et seq. 



4 Giglioli's Fermenti e Microbi, p. 300 *eq. 



