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neighbourhoods of collecting areas for drinking water—from an infection
which may doubtless grow and remain active in such soil
for long periods under certain favourable conditions; and the
possibility of water acting as a carrier must be removed in the only
certain way, i.e., by going to a pure source for a pure supply, and
sparing no pains and expense to guarantee the continued purity of
the water from the site of its collection until it reaches the consumer.
The principle of attempting to purify a polluted water is
wrong if it can possibly be avoided, and having regard to the
tremendous issues at stake, indefensible. Purification through sand,
for instance, is at best imperfect and by consequence dangerous, for
our methods of detecting the infectious power of water, where Typhoid
is concerned, are still very unreliable; chemical and bacteriological
examination may both fail, and even if the latter succeeds the information
can rarely be furnished under a week, and think of the
mischief which may, and does, result in the meanwhile; our only
real safety lies in selecting a pure water, and in keeping it pure.
Typhoid Fever can only become markedly epidemic in this
country when the infection gains access to a widely distributed
carrier such as water and milk, and this circumstance sufficiently
indicates the main lines of our defence against the disease. The
recent outbreak at Maidstone has set every Authority a question to
answer—What security have they that the means adopted to protect
their district from such an outbreak are sufficient? In London
every thinking individual must have his misgivings. The purity of
a water supply must always be measured from the stand-point of the
worst sample distributed; and, especially in time of flood, the drainage
areas of the Thames and Lea, furnish considerable pollution to the
river waters, and a sand filter is asked to protect London from the
almost constant danger of water borne disease. Certainly the deathrate
from Typhoid Fever is low for London, but as Prof. Corfield,
and Mr. Shirley Murphy have shown, there is an exceptional incidence
of the disease on those parts of London supplied by Thames
water during flood time, and the chemist to the London County
Council and the bacteriologist to the Local Government Board have