170 



The Water Supply of Albany. 



No one took the fever iu the village except persons who 

 certainly or presumedly drank water from a particular 

 pump and every house supplied from this pump was sub- 

 ject to infection. 



It lias been estimated that upwards of 150,000 people 

 are annually affected by typhoid fever in England. 



In speaking of the cholera which visited London in 

 1848-9 and 1853-4, a writer upon this subject says: " The 

 influence which the purity or impurity of water has upon 

 the health of people using it was strikingly shown during 

 the above periods. The Lambeth company pumped water 

 from the higher parts of the Thames and the supply was 

 equal to any furnished at that time by the other companies. 



The Southwark and Vauxhall company drew their sup- 

 ply from lower down the river and the water then furnished 

 by tnem has been stated to have been the filthiest stuff 

 ever drank by a civilized community." 



The Lambeth company supplied ^4,854 houses contain- 

 ing about 166,906 people, and among these the deaths from 

 cholera amounted to 611, or were at the rate of 0.37 per 

 cent of the population. The Southwark and Vauxhall 

 company supplied 39,726 houses, containing 268,171 inhab- 

 itants of whom 3,476 died from cholera. The death rate 

 being, in this case, 1.3 per cent or about three and one-half 

 as high as in the districts supplied with purer water. 



That the difference in the mortality in the two districts 

 mentioned was mainly due to the difference in quality of 

 the water supplied to them is curiously corroborated by 

 observations made in 1848-9. At that date the water fur- 

 nished by the Lambeth company was worse than that sup- 

 plied by the Southwark and Vauxhall company, and the 

 proportionate death rate in the former, was then greater 

 than in the latter district. 



In 1866 cholera carried off at least 10,000 of the popula- 

 tion of London ; while Glasgow, Manchester, and Sheffield, 



