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source of public water-works And secondly, there
is the danger of breathing air which is foul with
effluvia from the same sorts of impurity.
7. Information as to the high degree in which
those two dangers affect the public health in ordinary
times, and as to the special importance which
attaches to them at times when any diarrhoeal
infection is likely to be introduced, has now for so
many years been before the public, that the improved
systems of refuse removal and water-supply
by which those dangers are permanently obviated
for large populations, and also the minor structural
improvements by which separate households are
secured against them, ought long ago to have come
into universal use.
So far, however, as this wiser course has not
been adopted in any Sanitary District, security
must, as far as practicable, be sought in measures
of a temporary and palliative kind.
(a.) Immediate and searching examination of
sources of water supply should be made in all cases
where the source is in any degree open to the
suspicion of impurity : and the water both from
private and public sources should be examined.
Where pollution is discovered, everything practicable
should be done to prevent the pollution from