316 The Water Supply of London, [July, 



next morning emitted a peculiar smell, and a. glass of cold water 

 was turbid and bad an unpleasant taste. Tbe water was supplied 

 from a well at tbe bottom of tbe garden. During tbe ensuing 

 nigbt four of tbe inmates of tbe bouse were simultaneously 

 attacked by choleraic diarrhoea, and during tbe following day 

 several others. Two of those attacked during the night died on 

 the evening of that day ; their deaths are registered as caused by 

 choleraic diarrhoea. The waiting boy, who was quite well at noon 

 on that day, died of Asiatic cholera before midnight, and a lady 

 died on the 1st of September following of the same disease. Three 

 other inmates of the same house returned to St. John's Wood, 

 London, immediately ; but they were all attacked by Asiatic cholera : 

 one of them died on the 1st of September, another two days later, 

 whilst the third recovered. 



A sample of the well-water used by the inmates of this house 

 was taken on the 30th of August and sent to me for analysis. It 

 contained 93*4 parts of sobd matter in 100,000 parts; of this the 

 very large amount of 7'36 parts consisted of organic and other 

 volatile matter. There is a cesspool situated near to this well, and 

 it can scarcely be doubted that, during the thunderstorm above 

 meutioned, this cesspool overflowed into the well, causing the fatal 

 contamination; for on analytically examining a sample of water 

 collected from tbe same well on the 18th of September following, I 

 found its character entirely changed. It now contained 82*75 parts 

 of solid impurity in 100,000 parts of water, and of these only 1-13 

 part was organic or other volatile matter. It was clearly ascer- 

 tained that the water of this well was drunk by all those attacked.* 



Such is the history of the sporadic outbreak of the disease, 

 costing six lives. Dr. Lankester, in his article on the public health 

 in the January number of this Journal, mentions a parallel case 

 which occurred in Epping Forest and resulted in the death of eight 

 persons. Here again it was clearly proved that the overflow from 

 a cesspool passed directly into the well from which the household 

 derived their supply of water. The celebrated case of the Broad- 

 street pump, which in 1854 caused the terrible outbreak of cholera 

 in the parish of St. James, Westminster, forms as it were a 

 connecting link between the above sporadic explosions and tbe 

 gigantic epidemics which devastated London in 1849, 1854, and 

 1866. Dr. Farr has conclusively shown, not only that these 

 epidemics were directly connected with the supply of water con- 

 taminated with sewage, but also that the violence of the epidemic 

 depended upon the degree of contamination of tbe water supply. 

 Thus it was shown that, in the visitation of 1849, that portion of 



* For further particulars of this case, see the supplement of the weekly return 

 of the Registrar-General for the week ending 24th November, 1866. 



