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60
been due to the mere splashings from the bucket, and may
have been extremely small. Moreover, we have no proof
whatever that in this case it contaminated as much water as it
was capable of doing. While, then, the Caterham case may
fairly be taken as proof of the water carriage of typhoid poison,
it can in no way be taken as indicating the concentration
necessary to enable it to maintain its virulence.
The Commission elaborately calculates the number of
typhoid fever cases which must exist in the Thames Valley to
foul the London water to the same extent as was assumed to be
the case in the Caterham well, and shows a result which is
obviously absurd ; but Mr. Murphy cleverly paraphrases the
same calculation for the purposes of the Tees Valley and shows
the result there also to be equally absurd; and yet, as we all
know, typhoid fever in that case did break out from the use of
the water notwithstanding all the calculations.
Dr. Barry and the Commission.
Mr. Murphy carefully criticises the action of the Commission
in putting on one side the conclusions of Dr. Barry in
regard to the Tees epidemic, which, he says, "I am satisfied
must be accepted as certainly as the evidence concerning the
Broad Street well of 1854 and the Caterham well of 1875,
evidence which the Royal Commission evidently accepts as
amounting to proof."
Although there are important differences between the Tees
and the London rivers, the fact that filtration failed to protect
the consumers of the Tees water raises questions as to the
dependence which can be placed on filtration for complete and
uninterrupted protection.
This question of the power of filtration to produce uninterrupted
supplies of good water from foul sources is, and will
continue to be, of the supremest importance to Londoners so
long as their supplies are drawn from the river, and we cannot