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SAINT PANGEAS, MIDDLESEX.
REPORT
ON THE WATER SUPPLY,
by
THOMAS HILLIER, M.D.,
Medical Officer of health for the parish of St. pancras.
TO THE SANITARY COMMITTEE.
Gentlemen,
Amongst the various subjects on which it is my duty to report to you,
there is one of which hitherto I have said but little. I refer to the Water
supplied to the inhabitants of this parish.
The influence on the health of the public of good water for drinking and of a
copious supply for other domestic purposes, it is impossible to over estimate.
The most striking illustrations of this influence were given during the cholera
epidemics of 1848-49 and 1853-54. The subject has been well investigated and
reported on by Dr. Snow, and by Mr. Simon in a report to the President of the
Board of Health, published in 1856.
On the Surrey side of the river Thames there are nine registration districts,
in which cholera has been especially prevalent whenever it has made its
appearance in London. During the epidemic of 1853-54, one part of the population
of this extensive area were drinking water supplied by the Lambeth
Company from the Thames at Ditton, and another part, water supplied by the
Southwark and Vauxhall Company from the Thames at Battersea. About
24,854 houses derived their supply from the Lambeth Company, and 40,000
from the Southwark and Vauxhall. Amongst the 166,906 persons, supplied by
the former Company, there occurred 611 cholera deaths, being at the rate of 37
to every 1,000 persons living, whilst amongst 268,171 persons drinking water
supplied by the latter Company there occurred 3,476 deaths, being at the rate
of 130 to every thousand.
So that the population drinking the foul water from Battersea, suffered threeand-a-half
times as much mortality as the population drinking the less impure
water from Thames Ditton. The populations compared were living side by side
in precisely the same conditions of soil, climate, and social position; the only
exterior influences by which they were differently affected were the different
qualities of the water severally supplied to them. The very fearful outbreak
of cholera in the Golden Square district in 1854, has been clearly traced to
the use of water from a well contaminated by the partial escape of the contents
of a cesspool into it.
During the present year a very remarkable instance of the effect of water, in
exciting cholera when the epidemic influence is abroad, has been furnished at
"West Ham, near Stratford. At this place there have been about 20 cases of
cholera, all occurring in adjoining houses. The whole of these houses wero
supplied with water from two shallow wells, which were sunk in a gravelly soil,
within a few yards of a sewer, and not far removed from a large cesspool.
There was no evidence that there was any direct communication between the
drainage and the wells, but it appeared probable that from filtration alone the
water was rendered impure. The amount of organic impurity was not greater
than is found in some of the surface wells of this parish.
Two specimens of the water were examined by Dr. Thomson; one was found to
contain 53-2 grains of total impurity and 2'48 grains organic, and the other 56'16
grains total impurity and 4-4 grains organic per gallon. Nothing special was
noticed on microscopic examination.