21*3 



The Sanitary Value of the 



instance, have been traced to the uae of drinking water polluted by 

 the dejections of those suffering with this disease, and many epidem- 

 ics of typhoid and cholera, have been clearly shown to have had a 

 similar origin. I cannot refrain, in this connection, from referring 

 to the history of the cholera epidemics in Glasgow and Manchester 

 during the present century, taking the facts from the Rivers Pollution 

 Commission Report for 1874. Up to 1859 Glasgow drew its water 

 supply from the Clyde, which was polluted by the drainage of towns 

 higher up the river. After that year a pure supply was obtained 

 from Loch Katrine. The deaths from cholera in 18.32 were 2,842 ; 

 in 1849, 3,772; in 1854, 3,886, and in 1866, 16. Manchester and 

 Salford have a similar history. Up to 1851 they took their water 

 partly from the river Irwell and partly from wells, both sources 

 being much polluted. In 1832 there were 890 deaths from cholera ; 

 in 1849, 1,115, and after the introduction of pure water in the epi- 

 demic of 1854 but 50 cases, and in 1866, 88 cases. It will be 

 observed that in the general epidemic of 1854, Glasgow, using polluted 

 water from the Clyde, had 3,886 deaths from cholera, while Man- 

 chester and Salford, with a purer supply, had but 50 deaths. The 

 death rate per thousand per annum of Manchester previous to the 

 introduction of its present water supply, was 33, while in 1880 it was 

 24.7. (Usill, Statistics of the Water Supply of the Principal Cities 

 and Towns of Great Britain and Ireland, 1881.) In 1832 there were 

 1,000 deaths from cholera in Exeter, England, but after purer water 

 was supplied from a point two miles higher up the river than before, 

 and above the point at which the sewage of the town entered, when 

 cholera again visited the city, in 1849, there were but 44 cases, and in 

 1854 hardly a single case occurred. In 1854 the water supplied by the 

 Southwark Company in London, was polluted by sewage, while that 

 of the Lambeth Company was much purer. These companies had 

 pipes in the same streets, and supplied consumers indiscriminately on 

 both sides of streets. The deaths from cholera among those who used 

 the Southwark water were 130 in 10,000, while they were but 37 in 

 10,000 among those using the better water of the Lambeth Company, 

 while in 1849, when that company took water from a point lower down 

 the river than the Southwark, the death rate was largest among those 

 using their water. 



Dr. John Simon, Chief Medical Officer of the Privy Council and of 

 the Local Government Board of Great Britain, testified as follows be- 

 fore the Rivers Pollution Commission: ''It is, I think, a matter of 

 absolute demonstration that in the old epidemics, when the south side 

 of London suffered so dreadfully from cholera, the great cause of the 

 immense mortality there was a badness of the water supply then dis- 

 tributed in those districts of London." 



