Part 11

“I’ll go out to the farm to-morrow,” said Mr. Clyde. “What’s next?”

“Water, Mr. Clyde. I’ve found out where you got your typhoid, last summer.”

“Pooh! I could have told you that,” said Mrs. Sharpless. “There was sewer-gas in the house. It smelled to heaven the day before he was taken down.”

“Isn’t it curious how our belief in ghosts sticks to us!” commented the doctor, chuckling,—“malaria rising from swamps; typhoid and diphtheria rising in sewer-gas; sheeted specters rising from country graveyards—all in the same category.” Grandma Sharpless pushed her spectacles up on her forehead, a signal of battle with her. “Do you mean to tell me, young man, that there’s no harm in sewer-gas?”

“Far from it! There’s harm enough in sewer-gas, but no germs. The harm is that the gas reduces vitality, and makes one more liable to disease attack. It’s just as true of coal-gas as of sewer-gas, and more true of ordinary illuminating gas than either. I’d much rather have bad plumbing in the house than even a small leak in a gas-pipe. No, Mrs. Sharpless, if you waited all day at the mouth of a sewer, you’d never catch a germ from the gas. Moreover, typhoid doesn’t develop under ten days, so your odorous outbreak of the day before could have had nothing to do with Mr. Clyde’s illness.”

“Perhaps you’ll give us your theory,” said the old lady, with an elaboration of politeness which plainly meant, “And whatever it is, I don’t propose to believe it.”

“Not mine, but the City Water Commissioner’s. Mr. Clyde’s case was one of about eighty, all within a few weeks of each other. They were all due to the criminal negligence of a city official who permitted the river supply, which isn’t fit to drink and is used only for fire pressure, to flood into the mains carrying the drinking supply.”

“Then why didn’t the whole city get typhoid?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“Because only a part of the system was flooded by the river water. The problem of the city’s experts was to find out what part was being contaminated with this dilute sewage. When the typhoid began to appear, the Health Department, knowing the Cypress supply to be pure, suspected milk. Not until a score of cases, showing a distribution distinct from any milk supply, had appeared, was suspicion directed to the water supply. Then the officials of the Water Department and Health Department tried a very simple but highly ingenious test. They dumped a lot of salt into the intake of the river supply, and tested hydrant after hydrant of the reservoir supply, until they had a complete outline of the mixed waters. From that it was easy to ascertain the point of mixture, and stop it.”

“Our river water is always bad, isn’t it?” said Mr. Clyde. “Last summer I had to keep Charley away from swimming-school because the tank is filled from the river, and two children got typhoid from swallowing some of it.”

“All foolishness, I say,” announced the grandmother. “Better let ‘em learn to swim.”

“Can’t you swim at all?” asked Dr. Strong, turning to the seven-year-old.

“I went five strokes once,” said Charley. “Hum-m-m! Any other swimming-school near by?”

“No.”

“And are the children about water at all?” Dr. Strong asked the mother.

“Well; there are the canal and the river both near us, you know.”

“Then it comes down to this,” said the doctor. “The liability of typhoid from what water Charley would swallow in the tank isn’t very great. And if he should get it, the chances are we could pull him through. With the best care, there should be only one chance in fifty of a fatal result. But if Charley falls in the canal and, not knowing how to swim, is drowned, why, that’s the end of it. Medical science is no good there. Of two dangers choose the lesser. Better let him go on with the swimming, Mrs. Clyde.”

“Well!” said Grandma Sharpless, “I—I—I—swanny!” This was extreme profanity for her. “Young man, I’m glad to see for once that you’ve got sense as well as science!”

“Do you consider the Cypress supply always safe to drink? Several times it has occurred to me to outfit the house with filters,” said Mr. Clyde.

“No need, so long as the present Water Department is in office,” returned Dr. Strong. “I might almost add, no use anyway.”

“Isn’t filtered water good?” asked Manny. “They have it at the gymnasium.”

“No house filter is absolutely sure. There’s just one way to get a guaranteeable water: distill it. But I think you can safely use the city supply.”

“What next, the water problem being cleared up?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“By no means cleared up. Assuming that you are reasonably safeguarded at home, you’re just as likely—yes, even more likely—to pick up typhoid somewhere else.”

“Why more likely?”

“For some mysterious reason a man accustomed to a good water supply is the easiest victim to a bad. Pittsburg, for many years the most notorious of American cities for filthy drinking, is a case in point. Some one pointed out that when Pittsburg was prosperous, and wages high, the typhoid rate went up; and when times were hard, it went down. Dr. Matson, of the Health Bureau, cleared up that point, by showing that the increase in Pittsburg’s favorite disease was mainly among the newcomers who flocked to the city when the mills were running full time, to fill the demand for labor. An old resident might escape, a new one might hardly hope to. Dr. Matson made the interesting suggestion that perhaps those who drank the diluted sewage—for that is what the river water was—right along, came, in time, to develop a sort of immunity; whereas the newcomer was defenseless before the bacilli.”

“Then a man, in traveling, ought to know the water supply of every city he goes to. How is he to find out?”

“In your case, Mr. Clyde, he’s to find out from his Chinese doctor,” said the other smiling. “I’m collecting data from state and city health boards, on that and other points. Air will now come in for its share of attention.”