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theory, nor to attempt to support that theory by learned, plausible, but fallacious
illustrations. Nor will it do to cloud the enquiry in the language of
ambiguity, nor to indulge in a negative phraseology in order to tone down
difliculties ever and anon as they arise.
Besides, just consider the importance of this enquiry going a little further,
for if the foul water dogma he unfounded, and it is worthy of remark
that all espousing this view, without exception, have expressed every now and
then doubts, and hesitations, and reservations, on the matter, then in the
event of another Cholera epidemic in 18G8, we shall he just where we were
a year ago, apart from certain sanitary improvements, and the people of the
East of London will be as unprotected as they were in 1866.
It will bo not at all out of place, in passing, to advert to a few incidents
of almost daily occurrence that turned up and found ready credence at the
outbreak. Some of the strangest, wildest notions were for a season prevalent
about the water from the Works at Old Ford—the common drinking of
which—that of course—had brought on the Cholera. Then when a case happened
in any other part of London, especially the fashionable quarter of St.
James' or Belgravia, it was clearly traceable to the visit of a friend from Poplar
or its neighbourhood. Another was riding on the top of an omnibus from
Stratford, and it "turned his blood" as ho crossed the River Lea. A third
from Camberwell had gone to see a relation at Mile End, and so had drunk
the water. A fourth was seized with the pestilence after wearing a new suit
of clothes, which, on investigation, were found to have been made by a man
living at Limehouse. These and fifty other such stories were published
daily, as the rational mode of explaining the transmission of the epidemic.
It came to pass, however, after the lapse of a few days, that the cases
multiplied so fast and far away from the influence of the Old Ford water,
that it was found necessary to substitute another explanation of the migratory
character of Cholera. It was then given out that an "allowance must be
made for diffusion," the meaning of which was that the foul water had
already done its worst through the mains of the Company in generating tho
pestilence, but now that the germs had been scattered, something like the
spray from a water-mill, or the paddle of a steam-boat, and in this way was
"diffused" throughout the metropolis.