42
they principally drink beer; whereas the women and children are left at home, and procure a considerable portion of their beverage from the wells, the children drinking directly from them much more frequently than the women, owing to the latter consuming a good deal of tea, in making which the water is of course boiled.
Population of Terling 900."The causes of this severe epidemic, which up to Jan. 13th, had stricken down 208 of the inhabitants, and caused upwards of 20[1] deaths in a population of 900 souls, were due, as we stated in our columns on the 18th of January last, to local influences, and these have been proved (as we then surmised they would be proved) to be the existence of overcrowding, the accumulation of filth and nuisances, and the use of polluted water."
The Lancet then quotes from Dr. Thome's report, as an illustration of the general state of things at Terling, a passage showing that the whole filth of every kind, without any exception, of four cottages found its way into a well, 5 ft. deep, which supplied the inmates with their water.
From the Registrar-General's Report of Professor Frankland's analysis of the water supplied to London during 1867, showing an increase of solid impurity in the water over 1866: —
"Professor Frankland has reported on the waters supplied to the metropolis in the year 1867. He states that the search for sewage pollution in the metropolitan waters has now assumed a high degree of importance. In 1867 the total solid impurity exhibited an increase over 1866 in the waters supplied by the different companies, except in the case of the East London Company, in which a marked decrease had occurred."
"Fever at Cardiff (Canton District).
"Fever has been very prevalent of late in Canton, a district of Cardiff; and no wonder, considering the positively offensive pollution of air and water which exists there. A very able and practical report on the sanitary state of the locality has been presented to the local board of health by Dr. Taylor, and we regret that we cannot
- ↑ On March 14 the deaths had numbered in all at least 44.
