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disease. The prevalence of bronchocele (popularly called full-throat or
Derbyshire neck), in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and many of the
chalk districts of England; of calculous diseases in Norfolk and elsewhere;
and of glandular enlargements generally; has been long and
justly attributed to the use of water whose impurity consists in an
excess of the earthy and calcareous salts. From a consideration of these
effects, it has been assumed by some physiologists that rain water, or
even distilled water, would be best calculated for dietetic use; but it
would appear that a certain proportion of the saline matter is not only
unobjectionable, but desirable, in order to furnish the necessary amount
of salts of lime to the system, which might be insufficiently supplied
from other sources, the chief of which is from the bran of wheaten
bread, and which, it may be observed, the refinement of civilization
most injudiciously removes. Such view would appear to be confirmed
by an appeal to nature, amongst the whole of whose works chemically
pure water is not to be found within the reach of man. It is not yet
known in what the peculiar nature of the influence which is exerted by
the use of polluted water consists—whether it is only a predisposing
cause, or whether, under certain conditions, it becomes an exciting cause
of disease; but that impure water is a medium of the propagation and
intensification of disease has recently been most unequivocally proved by
the researches of Dr. Snow, and a laborious collection of statistical
facts made by Mr. Simon. The results of the latter gentleman's investigations
were briefly these:—
Amongst the inhabitants of 31 sub-districts, numbering about 1-5th of
the entire population of London, averaging the same social conditions and
subject to the same local influences, that, during the cholera of 1854,
the drinkers of water derived from the Thames, at a point where it was
excessively contaminated by sewage, suffered 34 times as much mortality
as those who consumed a water derived from a point free from such
polluting influences. This was further confirmed by the fact that,
during the occurrence of the former epidemic of 1849, the whole population
suffered almost equally, the whole water supply being almost
equally bad.