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4
Water used for making coffee, tea, etc., is boiled in a galvanised
iron boiler, situated in the canteen and heated in a calorifier with
steam at 10 lbs. pressure. There is a constant feed, and at meal
times a constant draw off from this boiler. The cooking, eating
and drinking utensils are not sterilised, being washed in hot water
from a special boiler, and cooled down with the addition of cold
water. The water in each case being from the Metropolitan Water
Board Supply. The hot coffee, tea and milk are kept in earthenware
containers of jacketted copper urns.
Of the 169 cases recorded, 166 drank water on the premises
either in a raw state or in coffee or tea. The three remaining cases
had food at the canteen which had been cooked in this same water,
but in one of these cases the symptoms were not typical.
The total number of cases was 169, their incidence as shown in
the accompanying diagram. There were many absentees, and these
were scattered in the following districts:—
Eichmond. Windsor.
Ealing. Twickenham.
Brentford—Chiswick Lambeth.
Hammersmith. Staines Rural.
Westminster. Barnes.
Southall. Lewisham.
Chelsea.
The Medical Officers of the various districts were communicated
with, and kindly furnished full and careful reports on the
absentees. The general history was the same.
There was no extension of the disease to any other members
of the sufferers' families.
It was found that the Chief Engineer, suspecting water as a
possible source of the trouble, had communicated with the Metropolitan
Water Board, whose officials had been down and taken
samples of the water entering the cisterns, the analyses of which
were as follows, conforming to the standard of filtered Thames
water:—