Cholera and water : an address delivered at the annual meeting of the South Indian Branch, British Medical Association, 8th January, 1886 / by M.C. Furnell.

  • Furnell, Michael Cudmore, 1829-1888.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cholera and water : an address delivered at the annual meeting of the South Indian Branch, British Medical Association, 8th January, 1886 / by M.C. Furnell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The question wliicli concerns us however as practical medical men, especially in India is this, can anything be done to prevent these constantly recurriiig epidemics of cholera ? I answer Yes. The remedy lies in the hands of the Authorities if they will but have the courage to use it, and it is this—to provide the people with a pure and uncontaminated water supply. In this, which in no way militates or interferes with general sanitary improvements, lies, it seems to me, our safeguard, at any rate in Southern India, against these constantly recurring epidemics of cholera, (I say Southern India because I have no desire to intrude on the domains of sani- tarians in Upper India). Daring the last five years it has been my duty to visit all parts of our Presidency, and shortly after I became Sanitary Commissioner, I was struck with a fact which, although patent and before my eyes every day during the previous 25 years of my service, had never, simply I suppose because it was not my business, attracted my particular attention. And it is this, every hamlet, village, and town in Southern India, and it is more or less the case all over this immense continent, has a water supply open and easily open to the foulest contamination. As you are aware the usual water supply of every place is a large open tank, one or more according to the size of the place. In these tanks the inhabitants proceed to wash their persons after obeying the calls of nature ; wash their dirty clothes, often clothes taken from patients that have died of cholera, and take home bright chatties of the water thus sullied as drinking and cooking water to their homes. Now suppos- ing water is an agent when contaminated with the cholera contagium (I use the word contagium, condemned as it is by a high authority in this country for want of a better) in spreading cholera we see at once that the habits of the people favour in every way its spread. Then comes the question, or rather two questions arise :— 1. Have we any proof that water contaminated with cholera dejecta will spread cholera ? 2. Have we any proof that a people supplied with a pure and uncontaminated water supply escape cholera ? I myself cannot understand how any one, at any rate any one in our profession, can have any doubt as to what answer should be given to the first question. The famous Broad Street case, so lucidly reported by Snow 30 years ago, ought one would imagine to have settled the question for ever; but since then an immense amount of evidence has been accumulating, especially in Europe and America