. Preventive medicine and hygiene. and the entire accu-mulation was washed intothe brook and thence intothe water-main. Threeweeks thereafter cases of ty-phoid by the score madetheir appearance throughoutthe town. On some daysmore than 100 new cases oc-curred. In all 1,004 caseswere reported. Some esti-mates placed the number at1,500, that is, 1 in every 5 of the inhabitants. There were 114 epidemic was limited to the houses supplied with the town Water orto persons who drank of the public water suj^ply. The distinction wasparticularly emj^hasized on one street where the houses on o
. Preventive medicine and hygiene. and the entire accu-mulation was washed intothe brook and thence intothe water-main. Threeweeks thereafter cases of ty-phoid by the score madetheir appearance throughoutthe town. On some daysmore than 100 new cases oc-curred. In all 1,004 caseswere reported. Some esti-mates placed the number at1,500, that is, 1 in every 5 of the inhabitants. There were 114 epidemic was limited to the houses supplied with the town Water orto persons who drank of the public water suj^ply. The distinction wasparticularly emj^hasized on one street where the houses on one side hadone or more cases while the houses on the other side had none at former were supplied by the to^m water, the latter depended uponwells. This epidemic will ever stand out in the literature as a clear-cutinstance of water-borne tj^hoid caused by the quick transfer of virulentmaterial from a single case. It proves further that freezing alone wasnot sufficient to destroy the typhoid infection, and on account of the. MAP OF PLYMOUTH, PENN. IN 18 S 5. Fig. 119. SPECIFIC DISEASES DUE TO WATER 939 coldness of the water it is exceedingly iinlikely that any multiplicationof the typhoid bacdlli occurred. The infection, although greatly diluted,was nevertheless sufficiently virulent to induce the disease in most ofthosewho drank the water. It further teaches the lesson how one per-son is sufficient to defile the pure waters of a mountain brook drainingan almost uninhabited territory. This epidemic was the first largeoutbreak in x\merica where the cause was definitely traced to the watersupply. It stands out sharply in the sanitary annals of our country onaccount of the lessons it taught and the good influence it had in stimu-lating other cities to safeguard and improve their Avater supplies. The Typhoid Epidemic at New Havei^.—Very similar to the Plym-outh outbreak was that at New Haven, Conn., during April, May, andJune of 1901, when 514 cases of typhoid fever occurre
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Keywords: ., bookauthorwh, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjecthygiene
