57 



tliat ought to be looked upon with apprehension -when it is from 

 the refuse of animal matter, the drainage of large towns, the drain- 

 age of any animals, and especially of human beings. . . . That 

 such an unspeakably disgusting mode of infection is not only possible, 

 but imminent, over a very large proportion of the inhabitants of 

 Great Britain, is conclusively proved by the numerous analyses of 

 drinking water recorded in the preceding part of this report. So 

 far from the horrible practice just indicated being exceptional, it is 

 the rule. As the result of our inquiries into the polluted waters 

 of this country we are compelled to state that it is a widely spread 

 custom, both in towns and villages, to drink either the water of 

 rivers into which the excrements of man are discharged, or the 

 water from shallow wells which are largely fed by soakage from 

 middens, sewers, or cesspools." 



The fact that the propagation of the Asiatic cholera was 

 due to impure water is clearly shown by the comparison in- 

 stituted between the tenants of two Metropolitan Companies 

 who lived on the same sites on the south of the Thames, in 

 exactly similar conditions. The Lambeth Company had used 

 remedial measures. The Soutbwark and Vauxhall Company 

 liad not, Ot the tenantry of the former included in 166,960 

 occupying 24,^5 i houses, we read, page 148 : — 



" By this experiment, it is rendered in the highest degree pro- 

 bable, that of the 3,476 tenants of the Southwark and Vauxhall 

 Company who died of cholera in 1853-4, two-thirds would have 

 escaped if their water-supply had been like their neighbours' ; and 

 that, of the much larger number — tenants of both Companies — who 

 died in 1848-9, also two-thirds would have escaped, if the Metropolis 

 Water Act of 1852 had but been enacted a few years earlier." 



In various townships which, in my professional journeys, I 

 have to visit, I find typhoid prevalent, and I try from inquiry 

 to trace it to its source. In one instance, all the houses 

 below the source of the detected impurity were infected, and 

 those above escaped. Even ducks were observed lying poisoned 

 upon the stream close to the source of the evil. Whether 

 victims to the poison or not, their putrif3ang carcases were 

 adding to it. In another township, the bright waters of the 

 Tasmauian river were subject to be polluted by the contents 

 of a mill-race, situated at the entrance of the township, as 

 well ashy irrigation-waters, necessarily chai'ged with organic 

 manures. A third district seems to me n'..ver free from low- 

 fever, and a terrible amount of mortality. I observed the river 

 as I entered the village to be receiving the excrementitious 

 poison of a large family, a member of which had been lying 

 ill for months and dying from cancer. 



I need not enter largely into the science of the subject. 

 Disease may be engendered and propagated, whether by germs 

 or by chemical action. Probably each theory is true. By- 

 some means or other, by the air or by water, these germs are 



