Downstream

season,’ reported the press.
However, Thames water
‘though improving, is not
exactly the fluid in which
bathers with delicate
stomachs would care to
disport themselves’. In
September 1874 the Medical
Officer of Health inspected
2,083 vessels on the Thames;
ninety-three ‘sick sailors had
been found afloat’, while of
nineteen samples of drinking
water taken from the boats,