View report page

139
THE STRAND DISTRICT, LONDON.
to these germs, but to other causes. The Metropolitan Asylums
Board had it under discussion up to almost the end of the year,
whether the facilities which they provided in connection with their
hospitals for bacteriological examination, should be extended to
the metropolis generally, but it was finally decided not to do so,
but to leave it to local authorities to initiate. Your Board has
passed a resolution that arrangements should be made to enable
medical men practising in the District, to have the benefit of a
bacteriological test in doubtful cases, and will be put into practical
shape in 1897.
Enteric Fever.—During 1896, the cases of this disease were
fewer in number than in the years immediately preceding, both
in London and in the Strand District. It will be remembered
that in the end of 1894 and beginning of 1895, the cases of
typhoid fever markedly increased, and I drew your attention to
the fact that while some cases were undoubtedly due to the
eating of oysters contaminated with sewage, the defective
filtration by the water companies during the period of tho floods
in the Thames was probably the cause of the increase. Both
these suggestions have been amply confirmed, and steps are being
taken to protect oyster-beds from such contamination. The question
of the water supply of London has also been occupying tho attention
of the County Council. The occurrence of such outbreaks as
this one of typhoid, that of cholera at Altona in 1894, and others
elsewhere is bringing about the conviction that reliance cannot
be placed upon sand-filters to protect communities from water-borne
disease. So long as we draw water from polluted sources like the
Thames, we must expect at times outbreaks of various intestinal
disorders, and should the water at these particular periods happen
to contain the germs of cholera or enteric fever, epidemics of these
diseases will certainly ensue. It is of extreme importance, therefore,
that a pure source of water supply should be provided for
London without delay.
Principal Diseases of the Zymotic Class.
The Registrar-General classifies small-pox, scarlet fever,
measles, diphtheria, whooping-cough, fevers (typhus, enteric and
K 2