[Reprints on public health].

  • White, W.P.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Reprints on public health]. 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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    taken to correct this deleterious condition of the water. I failed to see President Long, but Mr. Hermany, the Chief Engineer of the Company, promised to, and within a few days did, flush the water mains through the fire cisterns and sewers into the river, which process he was satisfied would effectually get rid of the fish. Firmly holding it necessary for a pure water supply that the reservoirs should be thor- oughly cleansed, this, so far as I was advised, not having been done since their construction, I called on President Long and urged that at the earliest practicable date the Company arrange to do this. I was surprised and pained to see President Long manifest considerable impatience with my request, saying that I was the first Health Officer to interfere with the Water Company, and having accom- modated me by flushing the mains, he would do nothing more. The result was reported to the Mayor and the Board of Safety, who again instructed me to renew my demand for the cleaning of the reservoirs and to persist until it was complied with. I obeyed instructions and had another, and possibly, two more conversations with President Long, neither differing essentially from the first in securing any promises from him. President Long, nor Mr. Hermany, did not in any of these interviews (which occurred in the latter part of 1893 and the early part of 1894) intimate that the Water Company even contemplated cleaning the reser- voirs, and much less made known that “all necessary preparations for the cleaning of the reservoirs were already made.” If such was the case, as President Long now asserts, why did he not say so? Certainly, a simple state- ment of that fact would have been entirely satisfactory, not only to the Mayor and Board of Public Safety, but most welcome news to a patient and long-suffering public. The minutes of the Water Company were not open to my inspection. I had no knowledge or any information from President Long or other official of the Water Company upon which to form a belief that the Company intended to clean
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