D. B. WARD, M. D. 197 



the animals remain perfectly well. Our water supply 

 has been accused of being the cause of the winter cholera 

 which has been prevalent here for some years past. 

 Now, any theory to be tenable must explain all the facts, 

 and this water theory does not. It does not account for 

 the existence of the disease throughout the county or on 

 the other side of the river where the water is not used, 

 and it certainly fails to account for the numerous cases 

 where it has occurred in this city among people who do 

 not use the river water at all. There has been an epi- 

 demic in Millbrook where the water supply is mainly 

 from springs, and I have reports of cases from other 

 places in the vicinity. In fact, if yoa will take the 

 trouble to inquire, you will find that this malady has ex- 

 isted for a 'number of years past all over the country. 

 As about nine-tenths, probably, of our population drink 

 the river water, it is natural to suppose that nine-tenths 

 of the cases would occur among these people, supposing 

 that some other cause were at work. That cases do occur 

 among the other tenth is an undoubted fact to which 

 nearly every physician in town can testify. 



I do not claim that my tv^^o experiments made upon 

 rabbits settles the matter, for a good many experiments 

 of this kind should be made to enable one to state posi- 

 tively that the water is at all times absolutely harmless, 

 but I can say certainly that the particular samples of 

 water used in these two experiments were free from 

 pathogenic germs and were lit to drink. We have a 

 disease which commenced some years ago, which occurs 

 in the winter only, attended by fever, great muscular and 

 nervous prostration, and slow recovery, and we call that 

 disease the "grippe." If we add a diarrhoea to these 

 symptoms we have a typical case of winter cholera. And 

 I believe the latter to be but one of the numerous forms 

 of that protean malady— the grippe. Whenever the one 

 has been frequent so has the other. Last winter, for 



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