Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-08-31
Cholera and Impure Water.

Something like discovery of the i'm
mediate cause of cholera has been made
in London by DR.. Snow, OF the Commit
tee of Inquiry The new theory makes
foul water the chief means of propaga-
ting the disease The worst ravages of
the pest in London have been traced to
the contamination of drinking water by
cess pool filth The Registrar General
attaches great importance to the theory,
and speaks of ''the detection since l849
of the mode of propagation of cholera"
as being among the greatest triumphs
of medical science" By dligent in
quiry it was found that the outbreak OF
the disease in 1854, at ST. James, West
minister, was caused by the use Of water
which had been contaminated by leakage
from q neighborng cesspool, into which
had been thrown, duripg three days, the
diluted excrement of \ child that had
died Of reported exhaustion after diar
rhea" On the 29th of August the ejec-
tions of the sick infant began to be de-
posted in the cess-pool. 1t died on the
Both.
On the 3lst the disease broke out, and
spread in the immediate neighborhood
of the foul well. The doctrine confines
the cause of the pest to the discharges of
the patient, the virus of which may be
diffused by water Now, it is found that
almost all the wells of London are pol
luted with surface water, and large num-
bers of them actually take in cess-pool
filth. In st. Georges, Southwark, no
less than forty thousand of these obnox-
ious pits have been excavated. The in
fected water hypothesis explains the
curious fact of instantaneous attacks of
whole districts, and it follows the dis
ease through its freaks and eccentricities
with more probability than any other
theory which we have examined. At
Horselydown. in l849, was court having
two rows of houses with their backs
together One row had eleven deaths,
the other one The side of the greater
mortality used water from a well into
which flowed filth from kitchen yards;
and the commissioners could not dis
cover any other difference. In Albion
Terrace, consisting of seventeen houses,
twenty persons died of cholera in fort
night, and four or five others were fatally
attacked after fleeing from the place.
The only peculiarity of the Terrace was
the supply of water from spring in the
road, into which deposits of foul matter
were made by the overflow of cess
pool and the bursting of barrel drain.
South London contains but one-fourth of
the whole population, yet in lS49 nearly
sixty per cent of all the deaths occurred
on the south side of the Thames, The
drinking water of South London was de-
rived almost exclusively from below
Vauxhall where the river had grown to
be so. foul as to call forth much COM
plant, In 1882, when Exeter derived
its drinking water from the river at
point where it received the sewerage,
the mortality was seventeen times
greater than in l849, when the source of
supply had been changed to locality
beyond the influence Of the tide. AT
Nottingham the deaths in 1882 were
twenty times more numerous than in
l849, the local authorities attributing
the difference to supply of pure water
to the poor among whom the disease had
prevailed In 1892, Glasgow suffered
very severely on both sides of the Clyde,
whose water supplied the city. In 1910,
South Glasgow was supplied with water
from the neighboring hill, and escaped.
We have no doubt that water and filth
are the two items of thought and action
for the authorities of the Northwest to
busy themselves about - Chicago Tri-
bune