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9
SECTION II.
THE WATER SUPPLY OF CHELSEA.
The quality of the water supplied to Chelsea in 1894 was up to
the average standard. The examinations of the official analyst for
the Local Government Board—Dr. E. Frankland—show that about
99 per cent, of the bacteria present in the unfiltered Thames water
at Hampton are removed by the processes of subsidence and filtration
carried out by the Chelsea Water Works Company. The largest
number of microbes present in a cubic centimete of the Chelsea
water was 64 (in January), and the smallest number 6 (in May).
Professor Koch has laid down the rule that good drinking water
should not contain more than 100 microbes per cubic centimetre,
so that, if this dictum is accepted, the Chelsea water supply in 1894
was satisfactory from a biological standpoint.
The unsatisfactory character of the Thames at Hampton as a
source of supply to London, and the absolute necessity for continual
care and watchfulness in conducting the filtration, by which alone
the water is rendered fit for human consumption, are shown by the
descriptions of the Thames water as it flows along the river at
Hampton. In every month of the year it is described as turbid
and yellow in colour, whilst in January it was "very turbid and
pale brown," and in November it could only be described as
"extremely bad." It cannot be doubted that at times the raw
material on which the Water Companies are required to operate is
of a highly polluted character.
Constant Supply.—The percentage of house supplies on the
constant system in the Chelsea Company's district was 63 at the
end of the year 1894, as against 51 at the end of the year 1893.
Before the end of the present year (1895) the whole of the parish
(home district) should be receiving a constant supply of water, the
London County Council having required the Chelsea Water Works
Company to afford a constant supply of water upon and from the
1st day of March, 1895, to the north-eastern portion of the parish
—the only part of the parish now remaining on the intermittent
service.
THE NOTIFICATION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Small-pox.— In Chelsea, 12 cases of this disease were notified in
1894 as occurring amongst Chelsea parishioners. Seven of these
cases occurred in the home district, and five in Kensal Town, but
of these latter one was a case of mistaken diagnosis, the patient
suffering from blood-poisoning, and not from small-pox. In 1893
there were 29 cases of small-pox in Chelsea, and in 1892 four cases.
During the past year, with one exception—that of an inmate of the
St. George's Workhouse—all the cases occurred amongst the general