/<?/<?] FATE OF TUUEKCI.K 15. \CILI.I OTTSIDK TIIK ANIMAL BODY 307 



TUBERCLE BACILLI IN WATKR AND OTHER MATERIAL 



INTRODUCTORY ^ le ^ ac * ^ ia ^ tubercle bacilb live and remain viru- 

 STATEMENT lent in water for so long a time (one year and 

 more), together with the other well-established 

 fact of the danger of the ingestion of these germs, makes their 

 presence in drinking water, in food, and in the soil assume special 

 significance. Tubercle bacilli gain entrance to water supplies thru 

 dejecta from tuberculous farm animals, especially dairy cattle, as 

 well as from tuberculous people; in the latter case both from their 

 dejecta and from their sputa. With these facts before us we can 

 well conceive the danger 'of tuberculous infection from drinking 

 water and the benefit that comes from a purified water supply. 



M ILLS-RE I NCKE '^ le epidemics of typhoid fever which at times 

 PHENOMENON .have caused the death of hundreds of people in a 

 city within a few weeks have frequently been 

 traced to the water supply. This brought about the purification of 

 the city water supplies. Besides the lessening of typhoid fever in 

 a city having a purified water supply, there has been noted also 

 great benefit from the lessening of other diseases. This was ob- 

 served independently by J. J. Reincke, of Hamburg, Germany, and 

 by Hiram F. Mills, of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Each was the 

 health officer of his respective town. This fact was styled by 

 Sedgwick and MacNutt 133 the Mills-Reincke phenomenon "For 

 every life saved from typhoid fever by the purification of a water 

 supply, a certain number of lives are saved from other diseases." 



The other diseases more especially concerned are infant 

 diarrhea, tuberculosis, and bronchial troubles. Mr. Allen Hazen, 

 at the International Engineering Congress held at the St. Louis 

 Exposition in 1904, gave a mathematical equivalent to this phenom- 

 enon in what is now known as Hazen's theorem, viz., "Where one 

 death from typhoid fever has been avoided by the use of better 

 water, a certain number of deaths, probably two or three, from 

 other causes have been avoided." Sedgwick and MacNutt found 

 the Mills-Reincke phenomenon and Hazen's theorem to be sound 

 and conservative when vital statistics of Lowell, Albany and Bing- 

 hampton were carefully studied. 



Dr. J. J. Reincke, health officer of Hamburg, in his report of 

 1893, has the following to say concerning the lessening of tuber- 

 culosis : 



"Especially surprising was the improvement (as to phthisis) in the per- 

 iod from the fourth to the sixth decade, when the sewage and the water- 

 supply system just completed must have been of very strong influence for 

 general cleanliness." (Page 285). 



