A NAPIER SCARE

Taranaki Daily News, 16 December 1926, Page 12

A NAPIER SCARE

“TEEMING WITH GERMS.” THE MUNICIPAL BATHS. A sensational rumour has been in circulation for some days to the effect that the municipal baths were an unsafe place in which to swim, owing to the fact that the water was infected with disease germs. Ones started the rumour gathered considerable weight, so much in fact that several parents prohibited their children from using the baths, and many adults started to fight shy of the place. The original story was to the effect that Dr. A. Berry, medical superintendent of the Napier Hospital, and Mr. L. Hicks, bacteriologist at that institution, had taken samples of water in the baths, to find that the samples were teeming with germs, and that the nurses at the hospital had been forbidden to use the baths. The Mayor yesterday gave the story an emphatic contradiction, characterising it as a “foolish hoax.” ' Neither Dr. Berry nor myself ever took samples of the water from the baths,” said Mr. L. Hicks, when questioned by the representative of the Telegraph, “and the best answer that I can give in refutation of the story is that both Dr. Berry and myself use the baths regularly, and will continue to do so. You can take it from me that the water in the baths is quite al! right, and-I will give you an official assurance that it is perfectly safe to swim there.”