Military hygiene and sanitation / By Colonel Charles H. Melville.

  • Melville, Charles Henderson, 1863-
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Military hygiene and sanitation / By Colonel Charles H. Melville. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    fissure had developed opening up communication between one of tlie numerous graves on the hillside and the under- ground channel of the water. At the same time such a rift might at any moment develop, and, naturally, the source was condemned. In the second case the water showed abundant signs chemically of gross organic contamination, and swarmed with B. coli. An inspection of the source showed that the organic matter was largely vegetable in its origin, whilst the faecal contamination which the result of the bacteriological examination pointed to was due to the excreta of cattle and sheep. In the first case the source could not well be protected, whilst in the second the provision of a few hundred yards of wire fencing would safeguard the supply with absolute certainty. Chemical and bacteriological examinations, when they give positive results, draw attention, it is true, to conditions which might in their absence escape notice. They are, of course, also useful aids in the administration of a water-supply system, once that has been established. For open sources of supply —^and it is with these that on service we mostly have to deal—^they are by themselves most misleading. Negative results are, of course, absolutely valueless. A great deal of nonsense has, in my opinion, been talked about this point of water examination on service. With fighting troops it is unnecessary, since all water is i^pso facto contaminated if it come from open sources in a district which is the scene of hostihties. It may be urged that this statement can- hardly hold good in the case of previously uninhabited, or only sparsely inhabited, countries, such as our troops fre- quently have to campaign in. A district may be abso- lutely uninhabited prior to the arrival of an army, but once that has taken place, it is obviously not only inhabited, but, in the immediate vicinity of the force, densely in- habited. The sanitary officer who, on the strength of negative results obtained from a chemical or bacteriological examination, permitted neglect of the usual methods of purification would make a serious mistake. I repeat, then, that it may be accepted as an axiom that on service all open sources of water are ipso facto contaminated, and therefore all equally demand purification. The quantity and quality of the water available having