Cleansing Tides

Enthusiasts for traditional methods of population control will rejoice that an encouraging degree of Britishness in global healthcare has yielded simultaneously a shortage of vaccines for cholera and a substantial increase in the supply of dirty water. So far it's mostly the lesser breeds who have reaped the benefits, with major outbreaks in Malawi, Haiti and Zambia. However, at least thirty other countries reported cases this year; and thanks to the state of Britain's water and flood defences, to say nothing of recent efficiencies in public health, it surely cannot be long before our famously maritime nation assumes its merited position of global leadership in this as in so much else.