CXXV 
room. Howisthisroom tobe disinfected? They are diffused in the 
air of our drains (hence the mystic power of sewer gas). How is 
that air sufficiently noxious on its own account to be prevented 
from entering our houses? We know how typhoid fever is generaliy 
spread. How are our water and milk to be protected from that 
contagion? Our hospitals, itis said, infect their neighhourhoods. Is 
not this preventible?” 
While Pasteur says :— 
‘*Man has it in his power to cause parasitic diseases to disappear off 
the surface of the globe, if, as we firmly believe, the doctrine of 
spontaneous generation is a chimera,” 
Having now done with general considerations, let us consider our own 
case. 
The original purity of a water from such a superb gathering ground as 
Mount Wellington may be to some extent counteracted if the channel 
by which it is distributed be not carefully constructed, and a watch 
kept both as to settlement on this gathering ground and along these 
channels. I propose to indicate shortly a few points which can only 
be regarded as blemishes on what should be an almost perfect supply ; 
small, perhaps, some may say fanciful, but in my opinion not desirable, 
either from a sentimental or a sanitary point of view. 
On oneside, the Fern Tree Inn and acottage are not far removed 
from the covered troughing, which just below them runs through a 
shallow cutting in a vegetable garden, and on the upper bank of this 
cutting manure is heaped, possibly all the year round, while on the 
reservoir dam stands a house, the ground sloping down from it to the 
edge of the reservoir. On the other side wateris brought for some dis- 
tance in an open channel parallel with and below the Huon-road, 
from which it probably receives rain washings ; from the small reservoir 
it flows unconfined cown the hill-side, spreading over much ground 
covered with vegetation, until it reaches an open channel, unprotected for 
hundreds of yards from the drainage from steeply sloping paddocks on 
either side, some ploughed, others much used for pasture, all heavily 
manured, directly or indirecly, passing then through the busy brewery 
yard to an uncovered reservoir by the side of and below a much fre- 
quented road. 
The effects of this treatment are shown in analyses marked L. and M. in 
the table, M. being a mixture of the waters from both sides; the increase 
of impurity, looking at the quantity only, is extremely small, but it in- 
dicates the possibility of risky contamination in thefuture. (Applause). 
Mr. R. A. Basrow stated in reply, that they were all deeply in- 
debted to Mr. Ward’s able paper, and would like to call the attention of 
the Fellows to the maps and diagram on the wall, as they bear on the 
subjects of typhus and typhoid fever. The City of Manchester is divided 
into a number of registration sub-districts, and these are again divided 
into sanitary districts, the maps of two of their sanitary districts are 
there hung, and it will be at once perceived that they contain very 
differently arranged properties; they are two districts, and each repre- 
sents one-ninety-ninth part of the city of Manchester. In 1881 there 
was nota single case of typhus or typhoid fever in the sanitary district 
tinted with green and blue, its streets are wide and straight, every house 
has its own earth or ash-closet and yard, and the drainage of both yards 
and streets isnot to be excelled in any city in the world. The other 
map, tinted red and brown, contains old houses, with numerous courts 
and alleys, along these the health inspectors are continually perambu- 
lating, but notwithstanding their watchfulness, typhus and typhoid fever 
often there prevail toa great extent. In the year 1881 in this small 
district there were 20 cases of typhus and typhoid fever, resulting in 
five deaths ; the population being only 3,955, against 10,305 in the neigh- 
