Untitled

Auckland Star, Volume IX, Issue 2714, 3 January 1879, Page 2

An ample supply of wholesome water in cities is v matter of paramount importance. JNo arguments are needed to shew how seriously the public health is dependant upon it. Any of our readers who have lived any great 1< ugth of time in the colonies must have had frequent experience of the ■widespread and insidious diseases which are engendered by tiu; use of unwholesome water for domestic purposes. The poison that lurks iv wells which receive surface drainage has been v fruitful source of disease and death iv many towns in New Zealand. While we are at all times averse to publishing anything calculated to create public disquiet, the number of complaints that reach us from all quarters in regard to the .state of the supply from the Western Springs leaves no alternative but to direct, public attention to the matter in the hope that an immediate remedy will be applied. The source of the supply at the Springs is all that could be desired, but iv its passage to the city it becomes impregnated with impurities which are likely to endanger the health of thousands of people, and more particularly those of weak constitution. The water iti some of the stand-pipes contains decayed animal matter, and has a very oflensive odour. One of tho gentlemen who has drawn our attention to this matter perceived this on tising a bucket, of water from a standpipe for ablutionary purposes. Another who is an experienced physician has prohibited the use of the water in his household for drinking purposes, having discovered in it the germs of typhoid. The cause of this is not dillicult to iind. The water has become stagnant, because it is allowed to remain too long in the reservoirs, which ought to be periodically exhausted aud re-filled, the waste water being utilised for (lushing the sewers. We have done our duty to the public by drawing attention to this matter, and not a moment should be lost in applying the proper remedy. " Organic matter in a putrefying state," says a competent authority on the subject of water-supply, "forms the worst kind of contamination that water can have. Though we may not know the precise effects of these impurities in the animal system, the single fact of their rendering the water repulsive to the taste and nauseous to the stomach would be sullicient to condemn their use. The highest medical authorities hold that it is impossible to say how small a quantity of organic matter iv a state of fermentation may not do harm." During the cholera visitation of 1853-54 which carried oil" 4000 persons in one district in London alone, an inquiry afterwards conducted from house to house, with every precaution to avoid fallacy, showed that the company which furnished the water to this district drew its supply from an impure part of the Thames, while another district adjacent was supplied from high up the river where the water was comparatively free from contamination. The proportion of deaths in those two districts was in the first 130 to every 10,000, and in the second only 37, that is to say the cholera rate in one district was 3& times as great as in the other.