A manual of jail hygiene for the use of medical subordinates / by W. J. Buchanan.

  • Buchanan, W. J.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A manual of jail hygiene for the use of medical subordinates / by W. J. Buchanan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (2) A recent case in 1892 in Germany. Two towns (which were so close together as practically to form one large city), called Hamburg and Altona, had a different water-supply. Altona obtained filtered water from the river Elbe, and Hamburg got its water-supply direct from the same river unfiltered. Altona with its filtered water practi- cally escaped fro^u cholera, while Hamburg with its unfiltered river water sufiered very severely. (3) The following case occurred in the central jail at Yerroda near Poona (Bombay):—Out of 1,279 prisoners there were 24 cases of cholera in 5 days with 8 deaths. Of the 24 cases, 22 occurred among a gang of 134 prisoners employed as a road gang. Some of the road gang drank water from the Mootla river, little below a spot where the clothes of two cholera patients had been washed and their bodies burnt a few days before. The rest of the convicts (1,145 in number), who remained inside the jail, were not attacked except in the two following cases. All these 1,143 prisoners who escaped the disease only were able to drink the usual jail-supply from a lake near Poona. The two men attacked, who did not belong to the extramural gang, were both sick attendants on the cholera cases in hospital, and one of them was proved to have taken his food, against orders, in the cholera ward. Numerous other cases could be quoted, but enough has been written to show that cholera is in very many instances, perhaps in the great majority of instances, introduced by means of drinking-water,* though, as will be seen below, it can be introduced by other agencies, as by flies, food, etc. {8) Enteric Fever, The evidence in favour of this disease being usually conveyed by means of water is very strong. It is, however (as in the case of cholera), generally believed that only * For other means of introducing cholera (vtcfe below, page 86).
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