March 23. 
tive. The necessity for a large adventitious water sup- 
; ply, then, argues a sanitary condition not altogether 
! natural—not to be compared with thy happy lot, gentle 
j reader, whose waters are thine own, and not strangers’ 
' with thee. Thy fountains are blessed. 
I In a former paper (in October last) we ventured to 
assure the readers of this Journal, that if the water which 
they use be not offensive at all to their senses, it will 
' rarely prove unwholesome; and that it is rather in the 
j form of vapour diffused through the atmosphere, than 
' in a fluid state in our drink, that water is likely to prove 
! the means of spreading cholera and other plagues. This 
point is beginning to excite considerable attention; 
and, at the risk of appearing paradoxical, we must beg 
to enter into some details for the edification of our 
country friends. 
The thiek-aud-thin advocates of a water in no case 
beyond four-and-a-half degrees of hardness by Clark's 
test, along with water-closets inside the house, and 
water-tight sewer pipes four inches in diameter, have 
invariably adduced a certain pleasant little country town 
in the Lake district as their chosen standard of health 
and longevity. Reckoning the cost of the above neces¬ 
saries of existence at about T‘10 or T15 per bouse for 
any given town, and then, as a set off, comparing the 
value of life in the town proposed to be improved with 
! the value of life in the town of Ulverstone, taken as a 
I standard, it lias always been proved that these really 
valuable improvements cost nothing at all; the money 
laid out upon them forming a most desirable investment 
of capital. But about two years ago, the gentlemen of 
Ulverstone bethought themselves that they would have 
a water company ; and the fact was then established 
that this very healthy town had a water not at all an¬ 
swering to Clark’s test, with very primitive arrange¬ 
ments, indeed, in the way of water-closets and house 
drainage. 
Conversely—in a small manufacturing town at the 
other end of the same county, contrasting unfavourably 
with Ulverstone in everything relating to health, an 
abundant supply of water of four-and-a-half degrees, 
Clark’s test, has been introduced within the last few 
years. One half of the people now use this excellent 
water, but the mortality is in no way diminished. An 
improved water supply has been provided for a large 
1 country town much nearer London, with a similarly 
indecisive result on the health of the place. 
Our friend, Dr. Popham, relates, that at Cork, some 
years ago, a very bad form of dysentery was attributed 
to the water of the place. A very pure spring was 
brought in from a distance, and the disease disappeared 
for a long time, but with the famine it reappeared, and 
continued defying the water supply. 
A short time ago, a whole family died, near London, 
of malignant fever, after drinking some water out of a 
ditch bottom. This last, in strict agreement with certain 
established principles, was set down as the cause of 
, death. On analysis it was found full of vegetable, &c., 
1 remains, and was pronounced unfit to drink unless 
! filtered; but some arsenic which had been swallowed in 
475 
the food was suggested as a supplementary cause, at 
least, of the illness of the family. 
The Tyne, under new and enlightened arrangements 
of liquid sewerage, receives the drainage of Newcastle, 
where the cholera was most prevalent within the atmo¬ 
spheric influences of the vapour from the river. The 
town has been lately supplied with Tyne water, to a 
certain extent, taken from a higher source; a question¬ 
able proceeding, no doubt; but a house to house visi¬ 
tation failed in proving either tba( the districts supplied 
from this dubious source suffered most from cholera, or 
that those drinking the purest water suffered the least. 
Something more, then, than bad water is required to 
cause death ; and something more than pure water to 
prolong life. 
This point has received the fullest examination by the 
Committee of the Royal College of Physicians, whose 
report on cholera is now before us. A report which we 
must beg to refer to, once and again, as a mine of facts 
and illustrations of the whole of the very difficult subject 
which we have in hand. 
“ This theory, then, as a whole, is untenable. It has, 
however, directed attention to circumstances which may 
be hereafter shown to bear a part in the production or 
increase of this as well as other epidemics; and the 
enquiries it suggests must not be neglected, when the : 
causes and mode of propagation of such diseases are 
again made the subject of investigation. It is not 
probable that in the case of cholera the influence 
of water will ever be shown to consist in its serving 
as a vehicle for a poison generated in the bodies of 
those who had suffered from the disease. But it may 
be proved that the poisonous matters which produce 
cholera, as well as other epidemic diseases, are capable 
of increasing in foul water as well as in foul air. At 
all events, it is scarcely probable that water containing 
putrid matters in a state of solution or suspension can 
be habitually swallowed without, at least, the risk of 
injury to the health. This subject needs, and is likely, 
henceforth, to receive more systematic investigation. 
Already, indeed, since the last epidemic of cholera in 
London, one mode, in which a large surface of water 
contaminated with the foul outpourings of sewers may 
largely contribute to the unhealthiness of a city, has 
I been set forth with scientific precision by Mr. Farr. 
With the aid of calculations made by Mr. Glaisher, he 
has shown that in the summer season as much, pro¬ 
bably, as four million gallons of water rises daily in the 
form of vapour from the surface of the Thames, at 
London, carrying with it into the atmosphere some 
portion of the putrid conten ts of the river.”— (Dr. Baley’s 
Report, p. 213,214.) J. J. 
“ The Bath and West of England Society for the 
Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, 
and Commerce,” under whose auspices so successful a 
Poultry Show was held at Plymouth, in June, 1853, 
propose to hold their exhibition for the present year at i 
Bath, on the seventh and two following days of the 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
