Reports on the chemical analysis of samples of water drawn from cisterns in different parts of the City of Glasgow / by Professor Anderson and Dr. Wallace, and note thereon by Dr. Gairdner (Medical Officer of the City).

  • Anderson, Thomas, 1819-1874
Date:
1869
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports on the chemical analysis of samples of water drawn from cisterns in different parts of the City of Glasgow / by Professor Anderson and Dr. Wallace, and note thereon by Dr. Gairdner (Medical Officer of the City). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    18/24 (page 16)
    NOTE BY THE MEDICAL OFFICER. The two Reports here submitted by order of the Board of Police may be considered as completely exhausting the chemical aspect of the question which excited so much attention, and gave rise to so much newspaper corres- pondence, a few months ago, viz.:—As to the safety of using water for drinking derived from a cistern instead of from the main. The almost entire coincidence of the two Reports as to their details, especially in the cases where the same water was twice analysed, gives a very satisfactory testimony to the exactness of the conclusions arrived at. I agree with the reporters entirely in considering that the apparent panic which took possession of certain minds, and found expression in the newspaper articles referred to, was founded on exaggeration. Nevertheless, I am not disposed to admit that the use of cisterns, as they are habitually used in Glasgow, in flats, and in houses of limited accommodation, is perfectly safe, or in any respect worthy of commendation. The placing of the cistern for drinking water near, or even in the same apartment as, the water-closet is especially a filthy practice, which ought to require no authority to condemn it; and even where the cistern is less objectionably placed, the advantage of perfectly fresh water is so obvious that any one who fails to insist upon the privilege, so easily acquired in most cases, of a direct supply is not, in my opinion, well advised. It may even liappen that serious disease may (though probably rarely) be the consequence of a supply taken from the cistern; for I have known at least one instance in which enteric or typhoid fever certainly appeared to have been propagated in Glasgow by a leakage from the water-closet of a flat into the cistern of the flat below. I advise, therefore, as a matter of reasonable sanitary pre- caution, that direct supply should be introduced as widely as possible, and that drinking out of cisterns should only be