The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-07-17
Poisoned Water.

DR.. Cyrus Edison of the Health De-
partment of this city says that the water
supply-from dug or driven wells-of
twenty towns he visited last year Was
impure, and in most cases its pollution
caused prevalence of typhoid fever.
Wherever persons are congregated in
houses and villages this "filth disease"
-discreditable to the boasted civiliza-
ton of the nineteenth centuri-ls cpl
demic. From Greenland to India, from
England to China, it holds fatal sway.
Yet it is easily preventable, but its raw
ages grow more deadly from year to
year, the teachings of science, confirmed
by experience, seeming to be lost on the
people at large. Celebrating and illus
trating this expression, he talked as fol-
lows to recent Commercial Advertlse''
interviewer:
'sThe fever is rarely due to any other
cause than polluted water, milk Or meat,
and is most frequently propagated by
contaminated we'll water. 1t is safe to
say that there is not a we'll in the coun.
try the water Of which it is safe to drink.
Hence most of the cases of typhoid oc-
curing in this city in the fall are caused
by water drunk from wells during the
summer outing Those wells furnish
nice, sweet-tasting water, which will i'm
press the drinker with its purity; but
thev are really what the Bible calls
'whited sepulchres.' The wells are sunk
near the houses, often under the floors
of the kitchens, near which are built the
cesspools. The wells draw their supply
of water from inverted cones, the base
of which is the ground surface The
cesspools contaminate the cones, and the
germs of typhoid are thus spread.
Another cause of the fever is ice
lice, from infected water which have
been shown to be a source of danger.
The germ is not destroyed by extreme
cold. The germs that caused the
Plymouth epidemic were exposed to a
temperature of twenty-five degrees be-
low zero. DR.. Fordyce Barker recently
showed that of twenty-five cases of ty-
phoid fever developed at a popular wa
tering place in this State during one of
last summers months, it was found that
only those who used ice from a lake near
by were affected. This ice was cut from
a point near the entrance of sewer,
which drained the town or a portion of
it. The use of this ice was stopped, and
the epidemic ceased. Milk may be the
carrier of typhoid germs, and may be-
come infected either through the water
used in washing cans or get the germs
through the digestive system of the
cow"
The conclusions, based upon we'll
authenticated data, are thus summed up
by DR.. Edison, and they impress anew,
for immediate and universal application,
the constant need OF cleanliness and use
of the safeguard of high degree of
heat applied TO water, milk and meat
for human consumption.
"First, the typhoid is due to germ,
in bacillus typhosus; second, this germ
is contained in the sputa of typhoid
fever patients; and, thirdly, the bacillus
typhosus is easily destroyed by disinfec-
ton with efficient agents, such as heat,
mercuric bichloride and carbolic acid.
Typhoid fever never infects the atmoS-
phere; never arises de noUo, and the
causes of the disease in the order of
their frequency are as follows: First,
infected water; second, infected milk;
third, infected ice; fourth, digital infec-
tions; fifth, infected meat. ."-E1chdnge.