BATHING IN POLLUTED WATER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1107, 19 May 1893, Page 38

BATHING IN POLLUTED WATER.

Dr Andrew WMsod, in the Illustrated London News of March 11, says:—The gi\rm theory seems to have broken out in a new phsse. It is now suggested from a Continental source that danger of disease may be incurred by bathing in polluted water. It seems that typhoid fever associated with jaundice broke out in the garrison stationed at Altona, and the epi* demic was attributed to the practice of bathing in the Elbe. At the period in question (1888) the Elbe was in a high state of pollution. Becently a similar Btutfy has been undertaken at Ulm among the soldiers. Ihe military bathing-place, it seems, is situated below the point where the foul and polluted river Blau joins the Danube. Be« fore the Blau reaches Ulm, it is contaminated with sewage matters; a village called Soflingeu sending its waste into the stream. Fowls dying of a myßterions disease at Soningen were thrown into the river, and on examining the dead bodies of these birds a germ was constantly found whioh resembled in all essential particulars the miorobe found in the jaundiced and typhoid-stricken soldiery of Dim. In a special experiment, some of the water of Blau, mixed with sterilised broth, was used to inoculate mice. The mice died in 16 hours, and in their bodies was found the miorobe whioh had been discovered in the cases of jaundice, and in the diseased fowls which had been disposed of in the river. I suppose the microbes were swallowed by the aoldlery, and gave rise to the disease in question in the usual fashion ; bnt it is interesting to discover that the jaundice symptoms are apparently due to the action of a specific miorobe. The lesson we learn from this research is the importance of bathing in pure and uncontaminated water. Possibly this hint may not be thrown away N on proprietors or managers of publio swimming baths, in whioh the water, I fear, is often allowed to remain too long unchanged.