Part 2

A great many citizens of Indianapolis are drinking water exclusively from cisterns. It is difficult to estimate the number of cisterns within the city limits; but a great deal may be said in regard to the general unwholesomeness of the water they contain. Rain water contains a small proportion of chlorine, the amount varying with the condition of the atmosphere, and the purity of the shedding surface.

When pure rain falls upon a roof it carries down with it all the impurities accumulated there during dry weather; these soon putrify in the cistern, and infect the water.

The majority of the cisterns in the city are faulty in some particular—either proper care was not exercised in their construction, or the necessary repairs were not made in due time—and they are found to be seeping, or leaky. Sufficient attention is not given to keeping the cisterns well closed, and the result is that filth in large quantities is to be found on emptying them. During my examinations I have met with many cistern waters in the city so polluted by sewage infiltration, that an immediate interdict on their use appeared to be called for. Owing to the impurity of the soil, sewage matter finds its way into hundreds of cisterns, and contaminates the water. Many of our cisterns contain water rank with vegetable or animal impurity, and the contents of the greater portion of these are not above suspicion. Some of them are neither more or less than shallow wells, receiving more of their contents by percolation than by inflow above.

Last December 458 cisterns in Memphis, Tenn., were examined with the following result: Sound, 209; seeping, eighty-two; and undoubtedly leaking, 167. In the total number, there were 249 condemned as unfit for use. To what extent these leaky cisterns contributed to the epidemic of yellow fever we cannot tell. The probability of sewage contamination in each instance was strong.

In the year of 1879 there were seventy-eight deaths from typhoid and typho-malarial fevers in Indianapolis. It may be stated as a probable fact, that our siege of fevers in 1879 originated and was afterward propagated in polluted drinking water, and ill-ventilated apartments poisoned by sewer gases, or in close proximity to foul and overflowing water closets and cess-pools. Forty-three per cent. of the total deaths in the city in 1879 were deaths of children under five years of age. Among the general causes of the high death rate of infants, may be mentioned poverty and ignorance. These two conditions existing in the parents, are great enemies of the public health and are two important factors which go to make up this startling infantile mortality. But it must be conceded that typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, hooping cough and diarrhœal diseases have been endemic in our midst as the result of foul air and polluted water. Deaths from these causes occur more or less at all ages, but distinctively more among children. The influence of filth causes the infants and young children to die at twice, or thrice, or four times their fair standard rate of mortality; and this disproportion seems to mark the young lives as finer tests of soil and water pollution than are the acclimated adults. The board of health of Indianapolis report that hundreds of cellars in this city are full, or partly full of water, the entire year; and that the increase of zymotic diseases is due largely to wet and damp cellars, as well as to the long continued and general practice of covering up foul privy vaults, after they have become full, to save the expense of removing the contents.

Being thoroughly impressed with the facts above enumerated, I commenced to make investigations. I employed a competent chemist, Mr. Jno. Hurty, to make sanitary examinations of water, and assist me in the work.

In the collection of samples of water, special care was exercised in regard to cleanliness and to avoid introducing any errors into our examinations. Below I give a tabular statement of the analyses of waters taken from surface dug wells in the city. Excepting the permanganate of potash test, the quantities are in one litre (22-100ths of an imperial gallon).

======================================================================= | | MATTER,| | PERMAN-| ALBUM- | FREE | Sample| TOTAL | ORGANIC| CHLOR- | GANATE | INOID |AMMONIA.| REMARKS. | SOLIDS.| & | INE. | TEST. |AMMONIA.| | | | VOLA- | | | | | | | TILE. | | | | | -----+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+--------+----------- |Gramme|Gramme|Gramme| Drops|Gramme|Gramme| 1. | 0.81 | .09 | .11 | 30 |.0024 | ???? |Very bad. 2. | 1.061 | .179 | .06 | 24 |.00015 | .00009 |Suspicious. 3. | 1.26 | .29 | .115 | 38 | ???? | ???? |Very bad. 4. | 0.94 | .131 | .093 | 22 | ???? | ???? |Bad. 5. | 0.89 | .055 | .032 | 11 |.00009 | .00001 |Suspicious. 6. | 0.964 | .098 | .08 | 15 |.00011 | .00001 |Suspicious. 7. | 0.798 | .178 | .104 | 28 |.00089 | .00005 |Very bad. 8. | 0.37 | .025 | .049 | 12 |.0003 | .0004 |Suspicious. ======================================================================= NOTE: ???? means not obtained.

In regard to the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of water, Watt’s Dictionary of Chemistry gives the following: “Water suitable for economical, technical or culinary purposes should not contain of solid constituents to exceed five-tenths of a gramme to one gramme per litre. Water containing one-tenth gramme per litre of organic matter is unfit for culinary purposes or drinking. Wholesome water should not contain of organic matter more than five-one thousanth to one one-hundredth gramme per liter. As a rule, water containing as much as one one-hundredth of a gramme of chlorine per litre may be suspected of being contaminated with drainage. Whenever in water the oxygen amounts to less than one-third of the nitrogen, and the water also causes a considerable reduction of permanganate of potash, the presence of decomposing organic substance is probable. The capability of water to remain for some days at a temperature of about 22°C, without undergoing decomposition is of great importance in reference to the question of wholesomeness.”

The permanganate of potash test given above was as follows: The test solution was distilled water, one litre, and permanganate of potash, one gramme. Of this solution, the number of drops required to render fifty cubic centimetres of the water under examination permanently red, were reported. It should be understood that the same quantity of distilled water required but eight drops of the test solution to become permanently red.

The first sample of water was taken from a well where fourteen persons were simultaneously attacked in December last by typho-malarial and diarrhœal diseases. All had been drinking water from this well, and had it not been for the timely help of the physician who condemned the water.

SERIOUS RESULTS WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED.

On examination the cess-pool was found to be connected directly with the well by a pipe, and when the cess-pool became full, its contents regurgitated into the well. The Board of Health examined the premises, condemned the well and ordered that both privy vault and cess-pool be cleaned out without delay. I understand that it is quite common in this city to connect the cess-pool with the well by a pipe so that the waste water may be readily conveyed away; but if people knew the danger to be feared from such an arrangement, greater care in the construction of drains would be exercised. Hundreds of cases might be related where in houses fitted with all that taste could desire, and gold procure, a siphoned trap, or in the absence of a trap, an imperfect joint, or an old brick drain, or riddled soil pipe, defects easily remedied if known to exist, have undermined the health of adults and slain the little ones. In the first sample a large quantity of animalculæ were revealed by the microscope. Fox states that “the existence of animal life in a water affords good evidence in itself of the presence of a very sensible amount of organic matter, alias filth. These little creatures feed and flourish on what we call organic matter, and in perfectly pure water they cannot live. A perfectly pure water contains no suspended matter nor any animal or vegetable life. The ova of the round and the thread worms, the eggs and joints of the tapeworm and small leeches, which may give rise to grave disorders, should not be forgotten in making microscopic examinations of drinking waters.”

Good water is both a necessity and a priceless blessing. Foul water is a scourge and a messenger of death. No one except a brute would hesitate which to choose if he could tell one from the other. It is only with the grosser pollution of water that chemists can apply their science. Infinitesimal pollution cannot be estimated by the skill of any chemist. It is the careful physician who decides more accurately in regard to the purity of water than the chemist. Sir Benj. Brodie in speaking of the detection of infinitesimal pollution says: “I think you have a much better chance of getting at these relations through accurate medical statistics, properly applied, than you have through chemical analysis, because chemical analysis is one of the poorest things possible to reach those delicate quantities. You cannot get at these small quantities at all; chemical analysis must be limited by our power of weighing and measuring. It may go on to a certain point, but we cannot go beyond that point.”

The well from which the second sample was taken, was within twenty-five feet of a privy vault twenty feet deep. Several families used water from the well. Two cases of

TYPHOID FEVER DEVELOPED

in one family, and all the persons who drank the water were constantly ailing. The third sample was taken from a well where four cases of typhoid fever had occurred. A thorough search had been made for the cause of the trouble. The well water had been suspected and was condemned by the attending physician.

Seventy feet from the wall there was a privy vault overflowing. Another vault was within twenty-five feet of the well. To the effluvia from the former was attributed one case of typhoid fever. The stench was so great at night that not even the windows in the upper stories of the houses in the neighborhood could be kept open. People living near had sore throats, malarial fever and diarrhœal disorders.

The fourth sample was obtained from a surface dug well, from which the inmates of the State Female Reformatory were supplied with drinking water. Since the first of last August thirty-nine cases of well defined typhoid fever, and thirteen milder cases of the same disease appeared in the Reformatory. The attending physician attributed the outbreak of the fever to the water from the well. After a thorough chemical examination of the water, the well was condemned and filled up, and the water supply now comes from a driven well.

It is worthy of remark that the persons attacked by typhoid fever, had been daily drinking the foul water from the well until the appearance of the fever; that the immediate surroundings of the well and the sanitary condition of the building were good, and that no direct cause of typhoid fever outside of the well could be discovered.

The fifth sample was taken from a well which supplied a family of six persons with water. Diarrhœal troubles,

SYMPTOMS OF TYPHOID FEVER,

sore throats, etc., were not uncommon, and the family physician was frequently consulted. One privy vault forty feet north from the well was full. Another privy vault was fifty feet northeast of the well. The contents of the vaults undoubtedly contaminated the well water to some extent, and of course the evil would be increased with time.

The sixth sample was drawn from a well on the south side of the city. No privy vault or cess-pool is located within fifty feet of it. To all appearances the surroundings are good. The well water has been used for drinking purposes for several years. One person in the family had typhoid fever three years ago, and malarial and bilious attacks have annoyed the other members of the family frequently.

The seventh sample was obtained from a well from which three cases of typhoid fever had previously been supplied with water. The attending physician attributed the development of the disease to the unwholesomeness of the water.

The eighth sample was obtained from one of the wells at the water works.

The following table gives the analyses of waters from driven wells extended below the first or second stratum of clay. These wells are located in different parts of the city. Excepting the permanganate of potash test, previously explained, the quantities are in one litre.

======================================================================= | TOTAL | MATTER,| |PERMAN-| ALBUM- | FREE | Sample| SOLIDS.| ORGANIC| CHLOR- |GANATE | INOID |AMMONIA.| REMARKS. | | & | INE. | TEST. | AMMONIA.| | | | VOLA- | | | | | | | TILE. | | | | | -----+--------+--------+--------+-------+---------+--------+----------- |Gramme|Gramme|Gramme|Drops|Gramme |Gramme| 1. | 0.400 | .012 | .008 | 10 | .000045 | none |Good water. 2. | 0.586 | .28 | .004 | 12 | .00005 | none |Good water. 3. | 0.699 | .047 | .025 | 9 | none | none |Excellent. 4. | 0.496 | .08 | .006 | 10 | none | none |Excellent. 5. | 0.454 | .069 | .038 | 9 | none | .0001 |Excellent. ======================================================================