View report page

operate, exert a terribly infective power on considerable
masses of population.
"The dangers which have to be guarded against
as favouring the spread of Cholera-infection are,
particularly, two. First, and above all, there is the
danger of water-supplies which are in any (even
the slightest) degree tainted by house refuse or
other like kinds of filth; as where there is outflow,
leakage, or filtration, from sewers, house-drains,
privies, cesspools, foul ditches, or the like, into
springs, streams, wells, or reservoirs from which the
supply of water is drawn, or into the soil in which
the wells are situate; a danger which may exist on
a small scale (but, perhaps, often repeated in the
same district) at the pump or dip-well of a private
house, or, on a large or even vast scale, in the
source of public water-works. And secondly, there
is the danger of breathing AIR which is foul with
effluvia from the same sort of impurity.
"It may fairly be believed, that, in considerable
parts of the country, conditions favourable to the
spread of Cholera are now less abundant than at
any former time; and in this connexion, the gratifying
fact deserves to be recorded, that during
recent years, enteric fever, the disease which in its
methods of extension bears the nearest resemblance
to Cholera, has continuously and notably declined
in England. But it is certain that in many places
such conditions are present as would, if Cholera
were introduced, assist in the spread of that disease.
It is to be hoped that in all these cases, the local
sanitary authorities will at once do everything that
can be done to put their districts into a wholesome
state. Measures of cleanliness, taken beforehand,