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responsibilities which they involve. The effect of his

teaching should be, gradually but surely, to impress uponthe working classes of this country the extent to which theynow suffer in health and life from preventable evils ; from

public insanitary conditions due to the ignorance or

the neglect of the municipal authorities for whom they vote ;and from private conditions, such as personal and domestic

uncleanliness, waste of money upon innutritious foods andinordinate beer swilling, to which it would be in their

power to apply remedies themselves, if only their con-

sciousness of effects were once guided to a perception of thenature of causes. The Times, in a recent leading article

upon the subject, referred to PALEY’s definition of educationas including every preparation that is made in our youthfor the sequel of our lives," and rightly suggested that no

preparation could be more important to the industrial

classes than one which would assist them to preserve the

health which is their sole possession and the indispensablecondition of their comfort. If the teaching of hygienecompels parents to send their children to school with cleanfaces it will take the first step towards inducing these

children, when they become adults, to wash themselves

when they return from work, and to insist, as Americansinsist at present, upon opportunities for cleanliness in

factories. Our system of elementary education has fromthe beginning been hopelessly wrong in one respect, thatit has been more guided by the possible achievements ofa few than by the obvious necessities of the many. Politicians

have sought popularity by proclaiming their desire that theschool should afford to all children opportunities which

might enable them to rise in life, or, in other words, to

escape from what the homely language of the Church

describes as " the state unto which it has pleased GOD tocall them" ; and they have consequently wasted "school-

ing " upon thousands who have had no possible use for itand to whom at the same time they have neglected to

impart the only lore which they were capable of turning to

good account. If the elementary school children of the nextfew generations can be taught to take proper care of theirbodies they will in all probability be the parents of otherswho will derive benefit from a degree or kind of scholastictraining which at present is almost entirely wasted andthrown away.

The Metropolitan Water-supply.THE Metropolitan Water Board considered at its last

meeting the reports of its various committees for the year1907-08. From the point of view of the ratepayer it is

possible that the report presented by Lord SELBY, chairmanof the Finance Committee, will prove of the greatestinterest, and we may allude briefly to the somewhat seriousfinancial outlook to which he directed the Board’s attention.

The balance-sheet for the last financial year shows a

practical equilibrium between debit and credit, althoughduring the four years of the Board’s existence the total

surplus has been Z30,000. No accurate estimate can be madefor the current year until the revenues which the new rating Act will produce have been reckoned up, but there is everyprospect of a deficiency upon the year’s working which, at a

moderate estimate, will be 24,000 and may not impossiblyamount to £70,000. It must also be remembered in con.

nexion with the financial position of the Board that the

Board’s debt, which results from the enormous sum of pur-chase money paid to the old companies, now stands at

£48,309,000, and that the sinking fund to be set aside to

extinguish the debt does not begin for another 15 years.

The most surprising feature of the report is the statementthat the working expenses of the Board during the last

year were £115,000, or over 16 per cent., more than

those of the companies during the last year of their exist-

ence. It is true that some of this money will producerevenue, as it has been employed in "accommodationworks " and new supplies, but Lord SELBY confessed thatsuch a consequence always attended the transfer of under-

takings from private enterprise to the control of publicbodies, a contingency that was pointed out in our

columns upon the creation of the Board. All this seems

to point to a day not far distant when consumers, other thanthose in occupation of highly assessed premises, may find asubstantial addition to their water bills.

But there is a brighter side to the question, and if

the expenditure upon the water-supply of the metropolishas increased enormously there is no doubt that London

can depend to-day upon a better and purer water-supplythan it has ever known since PETER MoRRYS set his

wooden wheels to throw Thames water over St. Magnus’steeple. Although we have often, and indeed recently,felt it our duty to call attention to the serious

imperfections which still remain, chief amongst whichis the almost continual presence of bacillus coli in

appreciable amount in filtered water, we do not forget thatthere is a force working constantly, though quietly, for

better things, ever gaining experience, and seeking to meetwith increasing success the dangers inseparable from a

water-supply derived almost entirely from sewage-pollutedrivers. This force is at work in the laboratories of Dr.

A. C. HOUSTON, the director of water examinations

to the Board, and the fruits of the diligent labours

of the staff under his able control are well shown

in such reports as that which we summarise on page255 of our present issue. This presents the result of

Dr. HOUSTON’S recent research work dealing with the vitalityof the typhoid bacillus in artificially infected samples ofraw Thames, Lea, and New River water, with specialreference to the question of storage. This research bids

fair to establish a very important principle which has beenforeshadowed by earlier workers, such as FRANKLAND in

this country and JORDAN, RUSSELL, and ZEIT in America,for in 18 experiments with unfiltered water infected with

enormous numbers of typhoid bacilli it was found that over

99 per cent. of these organisms died as the result of simplestorage of the water for four weeks ; and although the fewthat survived for even two months might obviously remaina source of danger if the experiment were applied to infected

sewage in the actual water-supply, yet a great protectionwould be afforded by the destruction of the vast majority of

typhoid bacilli which would result if the principle of a

’’ safety period " of storage could be uniformly adopted.Dr. HOUSTON considers that the " safety" " of an adequately

246

stored water may possibly come to be " accepted so

fully as even to afford justification for filtration throughmechanical filters at a specially rapid rate, with the resultof thus compensating to a large extent for the initial cost ofthe storage reservoirs." Be this as it may, he hopes to beable to establish comparatively simple tests to determine

whether any given volume of raw river water is as the

result of storage in a I I safe " condition to be let through thefilter beds. This would constitute an administrative

advance of prime importance, for at present a large amountof water reaches its consumers which has not been tested

bacteriologically; indeed, we understand that the arrange-ments of many of the filters do not permit of samples beingtaken of the water passing through each individual bed.The research lends a greatly increased authority to the

policy which Dr. HOUSTON has advocated persistently in

his reports, and in which he has always had our support-namely, that of greatly increasing the storage accommoda-

tion, for it now seems necessary to insist upon a minimum

number of days’ storage for all water, independent of the

period necessary to insure a constant supply. Some

help in this direction may be obtained by linking up

the unfiltered reserves of the different systems in the same

way as has been done with the filtered supplies, but we cansee no adequate method of adopting a counsel, not of

perfection but of common-sense, except the provision of

extensive new reservoir accommodation, even at the risk of

increasing the cost of production. The policy receives

further support’from another side in Dr. HOUSTON’S recentannual report of water examinations, which shows that as aresult of inadequate storage following the December floodsthe January filtered water in five districts showed only 10 ’ 9,21-8, 10-5, 21 1, and 23 - 4 per cent. of 100 cubic centimetre

samples which contained no bacillus coli, whereas in the

summer months when the supply was under control between88 and 100 per cent. of similar samples examined showed nosuch contamination.

There is one statement in Dr. HOUSTON’S research reportwhich deserves examination. He says : ’’ There is no

convincing evidence that the incidence of diseases liable

to be water-borne has been appreciably greater in the

case of ’ Water London’ than in the case of other largecommunities deriving their water-supply from unpollutedsources." In 1894 Sir SHIRLEY FoRSTER MURPHY, the

medical officer of health of the administrative countyof London, published a very remarkable appendix to his

annual report regarding the distribution of enteric fever

in London, which appeared to establish its very definite

relation to the water-supply. We have not space even to

summarise the various statistics on which he founded his

conclusions, but we may say that in an interesting series ofcharts he showed graphically an unusual increase in entericfever during the forty-ninth, fiftieth, and fifty-first weeksof 1894 over all "Water London," except in the areas

supplied by the East London and Kent Companies, whereasthe average normal curve of the disease for the other

years during which statistics were available shows a

decline during those weeks. The same abnormal increase

was observed in the same weeks amongst communities

supplied by the Thames and Lea outside London, whereas the

curve of typhoid incidence " followed its normal downwardcourse in districts otherwise supplied. This increase followedon exceptionally heavy floods, and there is a strikingsimilarity between a curve plotted to show the increased

weekly discharges of the Thames and Lea during the lastweeks of the year under discussion and the increased in"

cidence of enteric fever in "Water London." " The curve" "

showing this incidence in the Grand Junction area is almostidentical with the "curve" " which represents the Thames

floods, the latter reaching their highest point a fortnight beforethe height of the notification of the increased incidence ofenteric fever. There are other features of note about the

document which entitle it to a more prominent place in the

epidemiology of this disease than we believe it to have

gained. The story is an old one, but it carries a valuablelesson. Whilst bringing it to notice we can still repeat thatwe believe the metropolitan water-supply is better and purerthan was the case in those days, and if the Board wishes tocontinue to improve it, it will do well to turn a ready ear tothe advice of its scientific advisers, for on that foundationalone rests the safety of " Water London."

The Needs of Medical Education inLondon and Elsewhere.

A CORRESPONDENCE has taken place in the Tintes on the

subject of medical education which we hope will do some-

thing to awaken the public intelligence to the fact that theinstruction of medical students in this country, though of the

highest standard that civilisation has yet seen, is practicallyunendowed. So far as London is concerned the training of thestudent is largely conducted at the personal expense of the

teachers, while in many other centres in the United

Kingdom the pinch of poverty is distinctly felt. The

correspondence was started by a letter from Mr. HENRY

MORRIS pleading with the public for financial assistance to

carry on the work of the metropolitan medical schools.

Mr. MORRIS’S letter was, however, distinctly controversial,so that while all medical men are agreed with its

main thesis, that the public ought to assist in the

work of medical education, a considerable proportionof them do not endorse certain of Mr. MORRIS’S opinions.This is unfortunate, because controversy among medical men

is exactly what ought not to be apparent when it is soughtto obtain a public subsidy. The fact that Mr. MORRIS is

President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England at the

present moment must make it difficult for him to express anyviews upon medical education which will not be taken as in

some sense to voice the opinion of the leaders of medicine,unless the fact that there is another side to the various

questions is prominently brought out. Mr. BUTLIN at once

joined issue with Mr. MORRIS as to the merits and possi-bilities of a scheme for the concentration of preliminarymedical study in London, and the public is now aware that

when Mr. MORRIS appears as the whole-hearted opponent tothe principle of concentration he is speaking for himself andnot for his College, or for the teachers in the London medicalschools, or even for his colleagues on the stafe of the

Middlesex Hospital- His opinion must be treated with

all possible respect as that of a great surgeon, a