The cholera and our water-supply.

  • Frankland, Percy, 1858-1946.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cholera and our water-supply. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    34 G C AND OUR WATER-SUPPLY. The interest which has been awakened in the sanitary bearing of water-supply is largely due to the development of the germ-theory of disease. According to this theory several, at least, of those diseases which are propagated in the manner of epidemics diffuse themselves by living germs or spores, which, finding a suitable nidus in the bodies of animals, there multiply and produce that specific dis- turbance of the normal functions which characterises a disease of the zymotic class. It is, in fact, believed by the advocates of this theory that those diseases which are known by the name ‘ zymotic ’ are the result of the development and growth within the body of the affected individual of minute organisms akin to those which are known to induce fermentation, and the vitality of which is taken advantage of in brewing and other allied industries. Although the germ-theory of disease is stiU only a theory, yet it is supported by the evidence of such numerous facts and observations as to be almost irresistible. Moreover, recent pathological research tends to show that other diseases, such as phthisis, which have not hitherto been regarded as belonging to the zymotic class, are very possibly communicated by minute living organisms of the same kind. It is not possible here to enter into the evidence upon which this theory is based, inasmuch as it is a physiological question which is only indirectly, although most closely and vitally, connected with the subject of water-supply. A clear understanding of this theory is, however, necessary for those who would deal with the subject of water-supply from a sanitary or hygienic point of view; for it is no theory, but a stern and established fact, that water may be, and frequently is, the means of propagating zymotic disease. In the case of two zymotic diseases, and these the most fatal and destructive of the entire class, namely, Asiatic cholera and typhoid fever, it is proved beyond all doubt that water contaminated with drainage which has been infected by patients suffering from these