565 
ON PURE WATER. 
that the fever known as typhoid fever is propagated by means 
of water. Whether this fever can be produced de novo, by 
poison in water or in the air^ is still a question amongst 
medical men ; but that occasional epidemics of this fever are 
produced by drinking water there is no doubt in the minds of 
medical inquirers. Dr. Budd relates the instance of a ball 
at Cowbridge which was attended by from ninety to a hundred 
people. Of these more than one-third were laid up with 
typhoid fever. In this case there was satisfactory reason to 
believe that the water served at the ball was contaminated. 
Numerous instances, showing the occurrence of this disease 
in families after drinking impure water, are recorded, and there 
can be little doubt that it is one of the forms of disease that 
is propagated by the agency of impure water. 
Another set of diseases are malarious fevers, which are 
known to be produced by drinking impure water. I might 
add a long list of other diseases which, on competent 
medical authority, are known to have originated in impure 
water. I will only allude to the attacks of parasitic animals. 
It is Vv^ell known that various creatures inhabit the human body, 
especially the class of worms. A large number of worms pass 
their cystic or larval stage in the bodies of other animals. 
The eggs of these creatures are, in the majority of instances, 
introduced by the agency of water. Amongst the contents of 
impure waters the microscope reveals the eggs of the entozoa, 
and there can be little doubt that the germs of cystic worms and 
hydatids are introduced into the human system by the agency 
of impure water. I hope, however, that I have said enough 
to show how necessary it is for our welfare that pure water 
should be supplied for daily use, and I have now to speak 
of some of the practical measures that should be adopted for 
the supply of pure water. This question naturally divides it- 
self into the public supply of water to towns, and the private 
supply of families. 
With regard to public supplies of water, it will be seen 
that water neither from rivers nor springs is certainly pure. 
When water is taken from a river to supply a town, especially 
when the river receives sewage, every precaution should be 
taken to reduce the organic matter to the lowest possible 
quantity. It is undoubtedly desirable in a country like 
our own, where such large masses of the community, as in 
London for instance, must depend on water from rivers, that 
the legislature should pass some stringent Act, forbidding the 
diversion of the drainage of our large towns into rivers at all. 
When it is recollected that this must eventually be a gain to the 
country, by compelling the deposition of the sewage in the soil, 
where it must necessarily become a source of wealth, it is to be 
