View report page

53
manured lauds, and but for the filtration the
water undergoes by water companies would certainly
more often produce disastrous effects than they do.
The Thames has on several occasions conveyed the
poison of Cholera to the houses of persons supplied
by it. Many other towns have suffered in the same
way. Water supplied from wells is equally open to
suspicion. It frequently happens that a cesspool or
a drain in a churchyard communicates with the
shallow springs of wells and contaminate the water.
This is especially the case with the poisons of
Cholera and Typhoid Fever; but all the poisons of
Zymotic Diseases appear to be capable of being
conveyed by water. Even when water is delivered
in a tolerable state of purity by the water companies
it may be stored in butts and cisterns so imperfectly
that organic matter gaining access from without
may render the water unfit to drink. Our water
closets are often supplied from the same cisterns
that afford drinking and washing water. The result
is that the impure air from the drain ascends into
the cistern, and contaminates the water. We have
had deaths from Choleraic Diarrhoea in Saint
James's, Westminster, from this cause.
Under these circumstances whenever water is at
all open to suspicion, it should be boiled, and
filtered through an animal charcoal filter before it
is drunk.
It is to be hoped that every parish in London
will avail itself of the powers given them under the
Metropolis Water Bill of 1871, to compel the