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9
of the water and the cover of the cistern; the water, always
greedy of foul organic matters, absorbs them, and with
them the poison which produces the fever when the water
is drunk.
Guided by my former experience at Islington, I determined
to have every house where a case of enteric fever
occurred, and was brought under my notice, specially inspected,
with the view of ascertaining, among other things,
the existence, or otherwise, of that particular defect, and I
found, as I expected, that in almost every house where a
case of this fever had occurred, the waste pipe of the
drinking water cistern went directly into the house sewer.
This is the case in almost all old houses in the Parish, and
in many new ones, and is certainly a most fertile cause of
the spread of enteric fever and of diarrhoea, and would be
so in the case of cholera were that disease once introduced.
I have been able to bring so many cases in proof of this
point under the notice of your Committee of Works, that
they have authorized me not merely to issue notices for
immediate alteration where this particular defect is found,
but, if necessary, to take steps for enforcing compliance
with the notice; this, however, has in no case been requisite,
as persons do not fail to see the folly and danger of
ventilating their sewers into their water cisterns when
the matter is once brought under their notice.
The plan, now a very common one, of making the waste
pipe in question end under the surface of the water in the
D trap of a water closet, or in the supply pipe of a closet,
is only somewhat less reprehensible, and I hope that the
time is not far distant when such a filthy proceeding will
be illegal. The water in the trap of a closet absorbs foul
matters from the air in the soil pipe or sewer, and gives
them off at its upper surface, as is witnessed by the quantity