The Dangers of Water.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 5, 2 February 1910, Page 59

The Dangers of Water.

In disclosing to acquaintances what •:he believed to be some of the causes of ■long life, the late Sir Isaac Holden, after dilating on the advantages of bananas as a food, used to conclude: “And, above all, not too many baths; they are weakening.” This recondite observation is recalled by some remarks by Dr. Remlingen, which are quoted in “Cosmos,”

on the infective dangers of water, even When used externally. Dr. Remlingen has found several instances of boatmen who have contracted typhoid or cholera when their work has taken them into contaminated waters. The inference is either that the water has been accidentally swallowed or that it has come into contact with their food. Bathing is evidently an operation attended by the gravest risks, and apparently the only way to avoid them Is never to wash except in water that has been boiled,

or, better still, never to wash at all. But the risks of water contaminated by the Eberth bacillus of typhoid are not wholly imaginary. A very curious instance of infection is described in the “Journal de Medicine et de Chirurgie pratiques” (September). The regiment of the 11th Dragoons was stationed near the Savoureuse, a river fitly named, which waters a typhoid-infected valley. The river was so unsavoury that the rata never bathed in it; but the horses were daily watered on its banks. The

horses after being walked in the pool* of the river, which was nearly dry at that time of the year, were groomed and taken back to camp. The implements of their toilet were usually kept in the nosebags, arid a good many of the troopers who took a piece of bread with them to eat on the way baek were in the habit of putting this also with the brushes. An epidemic of typhoid in the regiment was most clearly traced to this cause, and the epidemic ceased when Hi« use of the river was stopped.