CXXV1 
bouring healthier district just alluded to. From this we conclude that, 
given old brick drains, ineffective stench traps, close courts, dirty rooms, 
and a filth-loving population, we have a pabulum favourable in a high 
degree to the development of typhoidandtyphus fever. That an outbreak 
of such fever can be effectively stamped out, we need only point to the 
pen and ink diagrams to prove. It is drawn to the scale of 100 deaths 
per inch vertical, the column of greatest height respecting the deaths 
from typhus and typhoid fever in 1868 for the whole city, viz., 638 ; 
these gradually diminish for the subsequent years until we reach 1881, 
in that year only 75 deaths occurred from typhus and typhoid fever in 
Manchester. Glancing at the diagram, if it be asked, What made so 
great achange in the mortality from fever? The reply is—The removal 
of 16 acres of cesspool, 4ft. deep, the thorough cleansing of many miles 
of ill-swept streets, courts, passages, and yards, partially covered with 
decomposing animal and vegetable matter ; the closing of burial grounds 
in the city; the condemnation of private slaughter houses ; and the 
removalof emanations fromdrains. Nevertheless, cases of typhus and 
typhoid fever still occur in that well-regulated city, and will continue 
so to doas long as a certain grade of the population will congregate in 
the dark corners, and by choice be filthier than brutes. The drinking 
water of Manchester has been pronounced very good by eminent analytical 
chemists, but it is patent to all who visit the locality referred to, that 
the population is of the lowest stratum, and their habits are of the 
filthiest. The dirty, drinking, gossiping women inhabiting such a dis- 
trict as that shown on the brown coloured map, can, with the assistance 
of the milkman, sow the infection broadcast. May not the germs of 
typhus and typhoid fever be the bacilli or bacteria left high and dry 
from the sewers, or raised from that thin native noisome element by 
evaporation, and before they have time to be otherwise affected by the 
atmosphere, find a congenial hotbed for propagation in the systems of 
ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and ill-washed humanity? According 
to their environment, do these germs develop sometimes into animal, 
and at other times into vegetable forms. (Hear, hear.) 
Mr. R. M. Jounston said he had himself on a former occasion 
drawn attention to some of the supposed causes which led to the rise and 
fall of the death rate in Tasmania, and now Mr. Ward had brought 
forward another one, namely, the pollution of the waters. The care that 
should be exercised in regard to the state of the water they drank could 
not be overestimated, and should not be neglected in any respect. He 
had been very sorry to see that ia some of the thinly populated districts 
there was great neglect on this point, especially in the neighbourhood of 
the tributaries of the great local rivers. In the bends of the river he 
had seen animal skins lying, and various matters connected with tan- 
neries. In the South Esk he had seen animal matter largely carried into 
the river, which might, at some future time, cause very great injury to 
the community. Notwithstanding the value of Mr. Ward’s paper, he 
did not think the discovery of the nature of the typhoid germ had been 
fully explained. There was an unknown cause, an inexplicable wave 
movement, which obtained much greater power at one time than it did 
at another, the deviation being accor.panied by no apparent cause. 
These difficulties did not sbow that the conclusions come to already 
were of no value, but how difficult a matter it was to settle if there were 
something else hidden behind those conclusions. Why, for instance, 
should the death rate have gone up so sudderly in 1878, the year referred 
to hy Mr. Ward ; and why, again, last yew with a probable increasing 
impurity in the water did the rate fall to a lower level? This wave 
action was felt while the local influences were the same. With regard 
to Mr. Ward’s experiment, they required to know whether the germs he 
had developed was the typhoid germ, or whether it was harmless. He 
