Hygiene of water and water supplies / by Patrick Hehir.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hygiene of water and water supplies / by Patrick Hehir. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    unwholesome filth and degradation. To the people of India the quality of their water-supply is perhaps more important than it is to any nation in existence, for they are the greatest water-drinkers known. It may in fact be considered their universal beverage. No greater improvement to a locality can be made than that of supplying each household, and each inhabitant, with wholesome water. Every occupied house of a town, municipality, or village should have, within a convenient distance, an available supply of wholesome water, sufficient for consumption and for domestic purposes. Such limitation of its use as we see in the bustees of Indian towns is neces- sarily associated with a condition of material and unwholesome filth. With regard to the necessity of an abundance of pure wholesome water. Sir John Simon remarks :—* The doctrine in general terms,that a vast influ- ence is exercised over the health of communities by the quality of the water-supply which they consume, is one which, as far back in literature as any refer- ence to such questions could be expected to exist, may be seen to have universal medical consent in its favour, and during long ages of history the common instincts of mankind were even surer and stronger than undeveloped science. Of the many invaluable additions and improvements which medical know- ledge has received during the last quarter of a century, scarcely any can, in my opinion, be com- pared for practical importance to the discoveries which have given scientific exactitudes to parts of the above stated general doctrine, and have enabled * Health Reports, edited by E. Seaton, m.d.