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35
The higher incidence in 1893 as compared with that of the preceding year is not due to special
prevalence in any one district, but occurred in 34 of the 41 sanitary districts. The following table
shows the case rates and death rates per 10,000 in each of the several sanitary districts in 1893, and
the death rates per 10,000 in the period 1885-92.

In 1892, in view of the risk of invasion of London by cholera, I had made inquiry of the medical
officers of health of the several sanitary districts as to any wells in their districts supplying water for
domestic use, and as to the fitness of water of such wells for this purpose.
The report of the medical officer of health of St. Luke contains an instructive account of the
danger attending the use of water from any such well which is exposed to risk of contamination, and
emphasizes the importance of critical examination of the circumstances of all local wells. I
therefore reproduce this part of Dr. Yarrow's report—
Last October, in response to an application of the medical officer of the London County Council, I
furnished a list of wells situated in this parish, three of which were found to be supplying water for
drinking and domestic purposes. Since furnishing the list, I have narrowly watched the returns of
infectious disease, with the view to ascertain if any such could be traced to the use of water obtained
from either of the sources indicated, with the result that I am now able to connect an outbreak of
enteric fever with the use of polluted water from one of the wells, and to show that the water obtained
from a second well is so contaminated with sewage or surface drainage as to render it unfit for the
purposes for which it has been used.
Well No. 1 is situated in a factory known as 25, Richmond-street, which extends along the rear of
19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 in that street. The ground floor is in the occupation of a firm of zinc workers,
who also furnish steam power to the floors above, and which are occupied respectively by the proprietors
of decorative glass works, a surgical instrument maker, a hollow razor grinder and a glass embosser on
the first floor, an engineer's on the second floor, and a cycle manufacturer and a whalebone polisher on
the third floor. About 67 persons are as a rule employed on the premises.
The well is described as a tube well about 35 feet deep, and the water, besides being used to supply
the boilers to obtain steam power was, at the time of my visit, used also for drinking purposes by all the
employees, in fact there was no other source of water on the premises. It further supplied the houses
† See footnote (†), page 6.