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Scientific Memoirs by
2. Water.
3. Drainage.
4. Food .
a few reports mention incineration; the perfect incinerator has not yet been found, but
experiments are being continued," ——and so on.
Of one place it is remarked that the trenching-ground could not be cultivated for lack
of water for irrigation,—a point of great importance which has a bearing on the proposals
for reform which will be sketched in the third part of this paper.
As to water.— At twelve stations specified in the summary, and at several others noted
in the individual reports, the water-supply is said to be liable to contamination. The mode
of carriage of the water after drawing ( e.g. , by mussucks, pakhals, etc.) is animad
-verted on as regards ten stations.——There is a double water-supply of different degrees
of purity in nine stations; in one large cantonment, a costly municipal water-supply has had
to be abandoned and a return to wells with "purification of the water'' has been ordained,
while the bazaar supplied by the pipe-water has been put "out of bounds"; a pretty com--
ment on modern hygienic methods.——"Faulty joints of pipes; impure sources " Major
Davies).
Opinion is strongly divided as to the value of boiling and "permanganating" the water;
those opposed to it on the ground of undiminished or increased prevalence of the disease,
point to the dangers involved by the necessary "manipulation" and by the exposure to
dust.—Water after boiling cooled in chatties.—The enteric bacillus is said to have been dis
-covered in samples of drinking-water from seven stations; the B. coli in those from three
stations; some officers state that no bacterioscopic examination was made; others
do not mention the point.—Wells and reservoirs are frequently declared to be uncovered and
exposed to pollution by dust.—The soil on the margins of a lake from which drinking supplies
are drawn is reported to be "polluted" and filth is washed in by rainfall.—See also reports
on the bacteriological examinations of well-waters by the special sanitary officers.—Dangers
involved in cleansing water cisterns; in one case detected, mud was used.—The Sanitary
Commissioner (India) remarks (report of 1893), "it is scarcely to be believed that the,
measures of water purification were everywhere so carelessly carried out as to be worse
than useless, and the suspicion arises that in applying them to the water-supply, the author-
ities were not applving them to the origin of the disease."
As to drainage. —Passage of water-pipes through foul water-logged soil and through
irrigation channels ; pervious, badly jointed pipes passing through polluted soil.—Rise of
the ground water due to introduction of water-supplies, disuse of wells, and imperfect
drainage of site.—Reckless distribution of foul irrigation water; stagnation of foul waste
water from cookhouses, attracting swarms of flies; faulty disposal of waste water.——
Finally some officers refer to possible infection from eating bazaar sweetmeats, to con
-sumption of polluted watercress and tomatoes, melons and other fruits, vegetables and
shell-fish.
[In this connexion Professor Gualdi, chief of the Bureau of Hygiene of Rome, has ob
-served a close connexion between the prevalence of Enteric Fever and the consumption of
raw vegetables, and he avers that no other circumstance fully explains its epidemic preva I-
lence. At Padua a careful bacteriological examination was undertaken of salad vegetables,
which were in the first place most-carefully washed with excellent water beyond suspicion
to bring them to a better condition of cleanliness than ordinarily obtains before con-