100 YEARS AGO

A suggestive paper by Prof. W. P. Mason, entitled “Sanitary Problems connected with Municipal Water Supply,” has been published in the Journal of the Franklin Institute. ⃛ The writer tells us that the average annual typhoid death rates for thirteen Massachusetts cities before the introduction of a public water supply was 7.94 per 10,000, whilst since the improvements have been carried out the deaths from typhoid fever have fallen to 3.83 per 10,000. In the whole State of Connecticut the percentage of typhoid deaths to total deaths has fallen from about 5.8 in 1870 to 1.84 in 1893. ⃛ A very remarkable example of how typhoid fever may be spread is given in the case of a serious outbreak of this disease which took place at Plymouth, Pa. The origin of this disastrous epidemic was traced to a single typhoid patient whose dejecta were thrown out upon the snow of a frozen hillside, at the base of which ran a small stream, whence the town water supply was ultimately drawn. Several weeks elapsed, during which the dejecta were hard frozen before the March thaws permitted the melting snows to wash them into the stream below; but during this interval the typhoid germs had retained their vitality and full complement of virulence, as demonstrated by the otherwise quite unaccountable outbreak of typhoid fever in the said town.

From Nature 28 October 1897.

50 YEARS AGO

After the introduction of newer synthetic antimalarials, the possibility of acquired resistance of plasmodium strains to these drugs became important, analytically and clinically. ⃛ In my series of experiments I started with quinine; then I tried to produce resistance to ‘Paludrine’, and I can confirm the possibility of resistance. Among the strains in my laboratory there is one (Plasmodium gallinaceum) which by administering seven times 4 mgm./kgm. ‘Paludrine’ weekly had acquired after some fifteen weeks a high degree of resistance to ‘Paludrine’. In contrast with Williamson, Bertram and Lourie, I was able to produce in Plasmodium gallinaceum a moderate, nevertheless clearly demonstrable, resistance to quinine. ⃛

From Nature 1 November 1947.