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29
DRINKING WATER CISTERNS AND DIARRHŒA.
During the year there was one well-marked outbreak of
Diarrhoea and general gastro-intestinal disturbance in a house in
Church Street. Of 21 persons who slept in the house 16 suffered.
The drinking water cistern was found to be very foul and to contain
upwards of one inch of deposited matter, and the water showed pollution
which was very evident to the senses. By a bacterial
examination it was seen to be teeming with micro-organisms. The
patients quickly recovered when the cistern was cleansed.
It is a pity that parishioners do not more generally avail themselves
of the provision of a draw-off tap on the main, and thus collect
the water used for drinking purposes before it enters the cistern. In
default of this provision the cistern commonly requires more frequent
cleansing than it is likely to get in the large majority of houses.
TYPHOID FEVER.
The problems connected with the life-history of the bacillus of
Typhoid Fever outside the human body are now being scientifically
attacked, and recent work by Lösener, Martin, Pfeiffer, Kolle,
Robinson, and others, tends to establish the view which is supported
by so much circumstantial evidence, that polluted soil is the great
medium in which the germ thrives; and the fact that the death-rate
from Typhoid Fever in this and some other countries has been
markedly reduced during recent years, may safely be attributed, in
the main, to two circumstances, i.e., firstly, that the pollution of
soil has generally been diminished, and secondly, that the increased
precautions taken of late years to guard our drinking water and milk
from pollution have had the effect of materially reducing the extent,
by spread, of a filth disease which is so frequently water or milk
bome.
To reduce Typhoid incidence every effort must be made by the
proper sanitary control of encampments of itinerants, &c., and by
the abolition of leaky and defective drains, cesspools, midden pits,
&c., to guard the soil—more especially that around houses and in the