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out in any isolated country or town without being directly
imported into it by human agency, was manifestly opposed
to most of the theories of its causation which had generally
prevailed. Dr. Snow, now many years since, first shrewdly
suspected that the Cholera contagium was contained in the
Cholera evacuations, and that the disease was propagated
by the entrance of minute quantities of such evacuations'
for the most part through the medium of contaminated
water, into the alimentary canal. And numerous subsequent
investigations, some of the most remarkable being conducted
by himself, have entirely confirmed the correctness of his
prevision. The matter is so important that I may quote
some of the best established and most striking cases.
The epidemic of 1849 was specially severe in the South
of London, which was supplied with drinking water mainly
from surface wells and by two Water Companies—the
Southwark and Vauxhall, and the Lambeth—which derived
their water from the Thames (the one in the neighbourhood
of Hungerford Bridge, the other in that of Battersea Fields),
and supplied it in a very imperfectly filtered condition. At
that time all the sewers of London discharged themselves
into the Thames, the water of which was consequently very
foul. The Cholera epidemic of 1854, also, was very severe
in South London. But between 1849 and 1854 the Lambeth
Company had removed its intake from Hungerford Bridge
to Thames Ditton, and consequently furnished an infinitely
purer water than it had done in 1849 ; the other Company
continued to draw its water from the neighbourhood of
Battersea Fields. At this time the two Companies were
acting in rivalry, so that in many streets their mains ran
side by side, and houses under the same sanitary conditions