ORIGIN OF EPIDEMIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18075, 27 April 1922, Page 8

ORIGIN OF EPIDEMIC.

DR. BEATTIE'S OPINION.

NOT FROM MENTAL HOSPITAL

WATER SUPPLY CONDEMNED.

A further statement relativo to tho typhoid outbreak at Mount Albert was made yesterday by tho Minister for Health, the Hon. C. J. Parr, who said that tho report he had received from the medical superintendent of the Auckland Mental Hospital, Dr. It. M. Bcattie, repudiated the suggestion that tho borough water supply had been contaminated as a result of the typhoid fover having broken out in the institution. Mr. Parr said that Dr. Boattie was prepared to state definitely that such an opinion could not be supported by any ' facts. Furthermore ho was convinced that j no experts could bring forward any cvii denco to provo the probability or oven the possibility of such contamination. Tho superintendent, said the Minister, had no recollection that at any time previous to the present epidemic there wero 30 patients in the hospital at one time afflicted with typhoid. If such was the fact it must have been many years before the installation of the present drainage svstem at the Mental Hospital. Dr. Beattie admitted, said Mr. Parr, that there had been isolated cases of typhoid at intervals in the institution, and no also said that there would probably bo a continuation of such cases so long as typhoid was endemic In Auckland. The following report he had received from Dr. Beattie spoke for itself:—""There seems to me no doubt at all that typhoid existed in Mount Albert, as it did in the Mental Hospital, beforo the outbreak became epidemic, and that the outbreak and tho antecedent cases occurred at Mount Albert and at the Mental Hospital simultaneously and that these were caused by the water supply and by that alone. The infection was not conveyed from the hospital or hospital grounds, but from ono or more sources outside the hospital, and for which no ono can be held responsible. There is no probability of any drainage from any of the hospital buildings passing in close proximity to the water supply excepting in properly constructed sewers passing over tho underground water currents, nor could any contamination arise from any part of the hospital grounds, which are in tho watershed, which are well cultivated and upon which no human waste is placed nor any waste or manure which conld con-

i vey infection. Thare are obvious sources of infection outside our grounds to which I need not further refer. " The whole position seems to me to be this:—The water has become infected— possibly through the heavy rains of March washing human waste into the underground springs, which are largely superficial springs running upon an impervious clav. The contamination may have arisen from any part of the watershed which is undrained, and it is impossible for anyone to sav at which point the infection gained access. , . " The Mount Albert water supply must never again be used by the Mental Hospital no matter how satisfactory the analvtio reports may be. Analysis can prove that the water is perfect to-day, but it cannot prove what it was like yesterday or what it will be like to-morrow, without further analysis on each of these days. Underground water supplies passing through an inhabited-and especially an Sued or a partially dmned-waUr. Bhed like Mount Albert are liable to conlamination at any time and are fraught with grave danger to any community.