150 
This city, whose population at the last census was 
397,816, suffered very severely indeed under the last 
epidemic of 1865, when during several days imme- 
diately following a very severe thunderstorm the num- 
ber of cases varied from 800 to 1200 per day. The 
first invasion of last year took place in Madrid on 
May 20, and the disease ran its course during the whole 
of the summer, gradually disappearing towards the end of 
the month of September. The total number of cases 
during the whole of the period was 2207, and the deaths 
1366. The total number of cases, therefore, during the 
five months that the disease never abandoned the city 
was barely more than what occurred during two days 
only of the epidemic of 1865, being little more than 4 
per cent. of the population. I think, therefore, we may 
safely say that the disease never assumed a truly epidemic 
form. The greatest number of cases, as was to be expected, 
took place during the months of July and August ; the first 
notable increase took place on July 25, and the first 
notable decrease on August 13. 
In connection with this it is interesting to note that 
Madrid was subject to severe thunderstorms during the 
latter end of July, and that 119 millimetres of rain fell 
during the month. These storms began on the 13th, and 
were especially severe on the 23rd, 24th, 26th, 27th, and 
3Ist, the first notable rise in the cases of cholera 
occurring between the 25th and 28th. As a general rule, 
no rain falls in Madrid in July, and the occurrence of 
these severe thunderstorms and heavy falls of rain was 
quite phenomenal. 
The new water-supply from the Guadarama Mountains 
was completed shortly before 1865, and the greater part 
of the drainage was also finished; but at that time the 
new water supply had scarcely come into use, the large 
majority of the houses being supplied from the old foun- 
tains which existed in various parts of the city. During 
the last twenty years the use of the Lozoya water has 
become very general, and an ample supply has been pro- 
vided for washing the streets and flushing the sewers. 
Madrid is now well drained ; the sewers are built upon 
the Paris model, and are not what an English engineer 
would consider as a good type for self-cleansing purposes, 
but the fall is, in almost every case, very great, and it is 
not probable that there can be any collection of foecal 
matter at any point. The connection of the street gulleys 
with the main sewers is made without any trap, and good 
ventilation is thus provided. As regards the outfall of 
these sewers, nothing satisfactory can be said. The 
mouths of the main sewers, which are seven in number, 
all discharge on the southern side, between the station 
of the Saragossa Railway and that of the Northern. 
The question of the proper disposal of the sewage in 
Madrid, as in London, has never been decided, and 
pending this decision the sewers were completed only as 
far as the outlying houses of the city, and the sewage was 
then allowed to find its way down to the Manzanares, in 
the best way it could. During the time the question has 
been awaiting a solution the town has extended, and 
houses have been built along the course of these open 
sewers. As might have been expected, the first serious out- 
break of cholera occurred about these spots, the original 
germ of the disease having been imported from the 
neighbourhood of Valencia, where the cholera was then 
raging. 
The existence of the disease having been established 
beyond doubt, one of the first acts of the Municipality 
was to attend to the water-supply. There existed 12 
ancient sources, which supplied 85 taps or fountains, 22 
of which were public ones, at which water-carriers were 
allowed to fill their barrels, and the remaining 63 
belonged to groups of houses. In spite of the excellent 
supply brought in from the Lozoya, these old sources 
were still a good deal used by the inhabitants—many, 
from old habits, preferring to use the same water which 
NATURE 
[Fune 17, 1886 
their fathers had used, many not being willing to incur ~ 
the expense of laying on the new supply. In view of the 
impossibility of effectually guarding against the possible 
contamination of so many sources of supply, the Muni- 
cipality, by decree on June 18, closed all the old ones 
with the exception of that of La Fuente de la Reina, 
which supplied five public fountains and four private 
ones. The Central Government undertook the custody 
of the Lozoya aqueduct, the Municipality took charge of 
the Fuente de la Reina. The Lozoya water is drawn 
from the sources of the River Lozoya in the Guadarama 
Mountains, some 50 miles to the north of Madrid. 
The river takes its rise in the granite formation ; the 
water is excellent, and from the uninhabited condition of 
the country through which the river flows before the 
int ake, it is not exposed to direct contamination from any 
specific poison. From the intake to Madrid the water 
is conducted by a series of magnificent works, partly. 
covered, partly uncovered, to Madrid, where it is re- 
ceived in covered reservoirs before being distributed in 
the city; the service is continuous, no cisterns being used. 
During the whole time of the existence of cholera in the 
city the uncovered portion of the aqueduct was patrolled 
by armed guards, no one being permitted to approach 
without a special order. 
Accompanying the extensive Report of the Mayor of 
Madrid, Don Alberto Bosch, amongst other plates is an 
excellent map of the city, showing, by a red dot, the 
situation of every case of cholera that occurred ; they 
are seen pretty thickly scattered about the uncovered 
exits of the sewers, and on both sides of the River Man- 
zanares—which is, in fact, in summer an open sewer—and 
in the lower portion of the city overlooking the river, and 
| there is scarcely any part of the town where a dot is not 
to be found ; but, with the exception of the points men- 
tioned, the cases occurring in the remainder of the town 
seem to be all isolated ones; in extremely few cases do 
two dots occur together, showing that the disease was 
more of a sporadic than of an epidemic character. 
Now let us take the case of Toledo. This ancient 
capital of Spain is certainly not a city that could be 
taken as a model of sanitary arrangements ; on the con- 
trary, it seems to be admirably adapted to form a good 
nest for any wandering epidemic, and yet, although the 
cholera entered it in the summer of 1884, and did not 
finally leave it till the autumn of 1885, the total number 
of cases, according to official returns, did not exceed 200, 
of which about one-half were fatal. The population of 
Toledo is over 20,000, so that the percentage of choleraic 
disease was only about 1 per cent. of the population for 
the two seasons. 
Toledo was supplied with water from the River Tagus, 
which flows round the city, the water being lifted by 
pumps. Above Toledo, on the same river, is situated 
Aranjuez, and above Aranjuez again, on the Manzan- 
ares, which is a feeder of the Tagus, is situated Madrid, 
in both of which towns the cholera existed in 1885, being 
unusually severe in Aranjuez. The Governor of the 
province, recognising the suspicious character of the 
water, stopped the pumps, and obliged the inhabitants 
to send for their drinking-water to a distant spring; he 
even forbade any one to bathe or wash clothes in the 
river. The measure was a strong one, but it saved the 
city. 
Let us next take Seville. Seville is an important city, 
the third in rank in Spain; it contains, according to the 
census of 1877, 134,318 inhabitants ; it has, strictly speak- 
ing, no drainage ; a few ancient sewers exist for carrying 
off the rain-water from the lower portion of the city, but 
sewerage for houses does not exist. The sewage goes 
into cesspools, which are, in most cases, situated just out- 
side the house, and under the street ; the inhabitants are 
extremely cleanly in their habits, and the outsides of 
their dwellings are constantly whitewashed, but it is not 
a 
