Page:On the Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom.djvu/45

39 that the diffusion of cholera among us depends entirely upon the numberless filthy facilities which are let exist, and specially in our larger towns, for the fouling of earth and air and water, and thus secondarily for the infection of man, with whatever contagium may be contained in the miscellaneous outflowings of the population."

"There have occurred some local outbursts of fever which, as especially the outbreak at Guildford, have preached in terrible language, in the startling tones of the angel of death, the frightful and inevitable dangers of an impure water supply, enforcing on even the most careless and ignorant the paramount necessity of unwearying and incessant vigilance against the possibility of the water supply being, in any part of its course, tainted by sewage.

"Typhoid fever, it seems, is by no means uncommon in and about Guildford, and before the particular outbreak several sporadic cases had occurred. But in the last three days of August cases of typhoid were observed in the more elevated and healthiest parts of the town. On September 3 and 4, 'a surprisingly large number of people sent for medical assistance; in the first ten days of September about 150 cases altogether had come under treatment, and by the end of the month that number had increased to 264. A remarkable feature of the outbreak was its ; and that, too, chiefly in the levels of the town, without distinction of social position and circumstances. The acmé of the disease's progress was reached before the middle of September, and it thence declined rapidly. Inquiring as to the causes which could have induced the disease. Dr. Buchanan soon came to the conclusion that drainage played no direct part in the matter; and the next point to ascertain was the state of the water supply.

"The public waterworks have their source in two wells sunk some twenty feet into the chalk at the lowest part of the town; one of these is an old well, from which water is raised by the power of an adjacent water-mill; the other is a new well, 'from which, for a short time in the middle of the present year, water was distributed