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Btables and houses in the same locality, and some of the
patients were taken to St. George's Hospital. It has been
remarked by many that diphtheria generally occurs among
the upper classes of society, yet in this locality it commenced
and prevailed among the lower orders. But my principal
object in noticing this case is that it is of the utmost importance
in a sanitary point of view, that the most probable
sources of disease should be rigidly investigated. In this
instance, however, a letter was sent to the Times* to the effect
that the diphtheria was caused solely by drinking impure
water—no doubt with perfect good faith on the part of the
writer—but as the first patient who died was out at service
during the day and only slept at home, and merely partook
of " a little cooper,"—a mixture of ale and stout—the
water could not have occasioned her death. Again, she
slept, during very inclement weather, in a cold unfurnished
loft with one of her sisters, which was traversed by
a wooden gutter, open at the top and at each end for conveying
rain water. It contained a muddy deposit, an inch in
depth. The stable was offensive. Moreover the water was
analysed and proved to be incapable of producing such a
malignant disease, and the cistern contained a charcoal filter,
O ' '
so that the horses drank filtered water. Hence in attributing
the cause of the diphtheria to the water alone, various other
important sources of disease were entirely overlooked. The
Inspector and myself made a stable-to-stable visitation, in
order to apply means for checking the progress of the disease.
Gas.
Two hundred and eighty-six observations were made
during the year, upon the six gases supplied by the Chartered,
* See the Times, Feb. 7th and 10th, and the Lancet, Feb. 15th,
1868.