DYSINTERIC COMPLAIN'TS. 186 



In calling the attention of one of the military officials at Nas- 

 sau to this subject, and to the paragraph we have quoted, he 

 said : 



*' Soon after my first arrival in Nassau, I was, in common with 

 some other officers of the garrison, troubled with severe griping 

 pains in the bowels, which I suspected wa3 caused by impure 

 water, and I caused the water in the cisterns to be drawn off. 

 At the bottom I found a dark colored, dirty deposit, two to 

 three inches thick. I had the cisterns thoroughly cleaned, and 

 the result was the griping pains disappeared." 



When in April, 1879, we returned to Jacksonville, Fla., we 

 learned that dysenteric complaints had made their ajipcarance 

 among the guests of the St. James Hotel, that the water in the 

 cisterns of the hotel was discovered to be very impure, and offen- 

 sive to the taste and smell. In Jacksonville as well as at Nassau 

 there had been a long season of dry weather, so that the cisterns 

 were drawn down low, and the dirt at the bottom no doubt in 

 both places poisoned the water — hence the sickness that followed 

 its use. 



Upon our return to the north we sent the substance of the 

 foregoing facts to the proprietor of the Royal Victoria Hotel, 

 and he promised to have the cisterns of his hotel emptied and 

 cleaned. 



Thus disease and death sometimes lurk, and wait, and watch 

 for victims, where they are looked for least, ^yhile at Nassau, 

 in 1880, we had no evidence of the existence of any of the dysen- 

 teric troubles that existed in 1879. Spring water is utilized at 

 the hotel for some purposes, and a bountiful supply is carried to 

 tanks elevated over the water-closets by means of a steam pump, 

 and a suspicion existed when the bowel comj^laints made their 

 appearance, that some of it had been used for cooking purposes, 

 Tlie hotel officials, however, denied that it had been so used. 



