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8
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
flows towards the metropolis. This source of contamination might have
been prevented by forming the Cemetery on the northern side of Highgatehill,
instead of on the southern slope, where it at present exists.
The pump-water also becomes contaminated with the residual liquors of
manufacturing processes. These are sometimes strongly acid, and soon eat
their way through the sewers. In one recent instance in this district, the
water of a pump was poisoned by contamination with the residual liquors of
a galvanized iron manufactory; and if this pump had been situated in a public
situation instead of a private yard, many persons would have been poisoned.
The deep-well water is not accessible to the inhabitants generally, and
therefore requires no notice.
The advantages, then, of the pump-water, are clearly overbalanced by the
disadvantages. Its use, therefore, should be abandoned except for watering
the roads, &c.; and should epidemic diarrhoea or cholera prevail, the pumps
should at once be locked.
The New River water forms the general supply of the district. This,
although void to some extent of the attractive qualities of the pump-water,
being less cold and less brisk, from containing a smaller amount of carbonic
acid and carbonate of lime, is, in every essential respect, superior to it.
Thus the higher level of the stream prevents contamination from sew ers, &c.,
and it is much softer. It contains 21.78 grains per gallon of solid residue,
of which 20.81 are inorganic, and 0.96 are organic. This amount of organic
matter is as small as possible—it is scarcely beyond the limits of error of
experiment. As obtained from the New River reservoir, into which it is
received after filtration through the beds of sand and gravel in the new
filtering works, or from any of the cab-stand taps, it is perfectly clear and
sparkling—very different in appearance from the unfiltered water found in
the river itself ; and it forms, I believe, an unexceptionable supply as regards
quality.*
* In a report to the Board of Health, bearing the date of the present year, the New
River water is still complained of as impure. Now, I am in no way whatever interested
in the New River Company, but I may unhesitatingly repeat, that the water
supplied by this company is of unexceptionable quality. When the cholera has prevailed
in the Metropolis, whenever the impure Thames water, mixed with the
sewage, has been drank, there the mortality has been great, and the same applies
to the pump-water; whilst, whenever the New River water has been used, there the
mortality has been small or none. And why should we desire absolutely pure water?
Is any article of diet absolutely pure? Does not half-a-pint of beer or a slice of the
finest bread contain millions of Fungi? Does not every one's mouth abound with
living Algre or Fungi? What are the Entomostraca but minute lobsters ? They die
as soon as they enter the stomach; when boiled they become red, and they are
undoubtedly nutritive. What are the Diatomacea' and Desmidiaceæ but unicellular
organisms, which, when united, we swallow by millions in a leaf of water-cress
or any other vegetable or fruit? Does not the very air we breathe abound in the
germs of the lower plants and animals? Objection has been taken to the use of
water containing microscopic animals and plants upon two grounds: first, that the
orgauisms exert a noxious action upon the body; and second, that the organisms
indicate the existence of noxious decomposing organic matter in the water. The
first ground is entirely unworthy of consideration. There is no instance known
where a microscopic organism, capable of living in water, taken into the body will
exert any injurious action. With regard to the second ground, it is true that,
wherever there is spontaneously decomposing organic matter, there are abundance of
microscopic beings. But there may be an abundance of these beings also where
there is no decomposing organic matter present. Distilled water, when exposed to
the air for some time, will abound in these beings. The minute Alga; and Fungi,