Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/645

Rh proved that there had been considerable confusion; so that a house which was registered on the Lambeth Company, really drew its water supply from the main of the Vauxhall Company, and vice versa. The cholera epidemic of 1866 was essentially limited to East London. The East London Water Company supplied this district with water filtered from the river Lea. Letheby brought forward a series of facts to prove that we might with equal justice accuse the East London Gas Company, since the first case of cholera broke out at the gas-factory. A second instance in London was that with which the name of Dr. Snow is associated. Golden Square, a part of London with very deficient drainage, was the scene of a severe epidemic of cholera in 1854. The epidemic concentrated itself in Broad Street. There must have been some reason for this, and the reason must be discovered. Where Golden Square and Broad Street stood was formerly a place of burial for individuals dead of the plague. This pest-blast of a former century could walk from its grave in 1854 like the ghost in "Hamlet." But a narrower inspection proved that the old pest-field and the new cholera-field were not exactly coextensive. Now, however, another fact was brought to light, which led to the substitution of the drinking water as the cause. In the middle of Broad Street there stood a pump of which the water was much esteemed on account of its freshness. At the end of August, while the cholera was raging, it was found out that many sufferers had drunk of the pump-water, but the fact was not sufficiently decisive, and so a pathological experiment was required. In Broad Street there was a percussion-cap factory belonging to Mr. Eley. The persons of this establishment suffered from cholera, and many of them died. Mr. Eley remained well, but he did not live at the factory, though he went there daily and returned home to Hampstead after business, and there lived with his mother and a niece. His mother, who formerly lived in Broad Street, had a great liking for the water of the pump-well, which was shown in the fact that her son daily took home the water for his mother and niece. In Hampstead there had been no case of cholera until the mother and daughter fell ill and died of cholera, without having any other communication with Broad Street than through the means mentioned. What more is wanted? Who can doubt any longer? An experiment on two human beings with a disease which animals are not susceptible to! A sad privilege. Never before had facts received a more frivolous interpretation. Suppose, for a moment, that Mr. Eley had gone to and from Hampstead to Broad Street without having taken the water to his mother and niece; and, further, that they had become ill of the cholera without having drunk the pump-water, would it have been imagined that the cholera had been carried by the son, who remained in good health? The contagionists would probably reply that Mr. Eley may have had the cholera in a mild form. The localists would say that a poison locally originated might be passed on by healthy people without