Sir Henry Thompson, in a letter to Monday's Times, maintains
that the only way for travellers to avoid typhoid fever abroad, is to abstain altogether from drinking any of the water of the countries through which they travel, till it has been boiled. Generally, he says, you can get good mineral waters, though "the siphon" is hardly more trustworthy than ordinary water, being, indeed, often supplied by tainted water. But where such mineral waters are not to be found, and the traveller objects to wine, the best plan is to secure cold, weak tea from the landlord, offering to pay for it at the rate of a franc a head, only insisting that the water shall have been properly boiled, just as it is in making tea. We have no doubt that Sir Henry Thompson is quite right that this dismal fluid will be provided at a franc a head without exciting any indignation in the landlord, but then such arrangements add a good deal to the vexations and cares of travel, as well as to the tribulations of meals. We believe that the chemists could provide travellers with some either tasteless or agreeable fluid, a few drops of which would render water, however danger- ously charged with organic matter, quite harmless to the drinker.
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