Abstract
THE greatest public health triumph of the last 1T half-century has been the almost complete conquest over water-borne infections. In Great Britain the chief of these is enteric or typhoid fever; and the reduction of the death-rate from this disease in England and Wales from 332 per million of population in the average experience of 1871–80 to 25 per million in the average experience of 1921–25, shows that this disease is following typhus fever and becoming a disease of rare occurrence in the country. Although reduction of personal infection by better nursing and hospital treatment, the increased protection of foods which, like oysters, are eaten raw, and the help which bacteriology has given in securing prompt diagnosis of enteric disease in ‘carriers’ as well as in clinical cases of the disease, have all borne an important part in bringing about this remarkable result, the chief factor has been the protection of the public water supplies of Great Britain.
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Remaining Possibilities of Water-borne Diseases. Nature 119, 769–770 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119769a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119769a0