Barbara Brookes
Water everywhere but not a drop to drink – this is how it was last week in North Dunedin after an unfortunate incident when an old unclosed pipe led to possible contamination of the treated water supply with untreated water. Those cups of coffee we’ve all come to rely on were unavailable. The hospital, residential colleges, food suppliers and local households were thrown into disarray. Where to eat lunch safely became an important question around the university. After an exceedingly wet winter, just when we hoped the rain would stop and make the grass less muddy, all of a sudden we were gasping for clean water.
We were grateful that the Dunedin City Council moved quickly to avert the kind of catastrophe that occurred in Havelock North in August 2016 where over 5000 people became violently ill with campylobacter because of contaminated water. A general complacency about the safety of drinking water was well and truly shaken by that event. So when and how did Dunedin water become safe?
Historically, plays, then novels, treated medical doctors as stock characters, often quacks or figures of fun, as in the 
Accompanying Admiral William Byrd’s second expedition to the Antarctic in 1934, Dr Guy Shirey reached the Bay of Whales and decided that he could not go on. Faced with this news, Byrd immediately sent out a flurry of telegrams seeking a replacement. He contacted his agent in Wellington and was told that few doctors were willing to come forward. Those who had expressed interest wanted higher salaries. There was, however, one applicant from Nelson. The telegram continued:
From memory, for memory, and in memory. 
My ears are full of screaming: the name-calling, the CAPS, the exclamation points!!! Whenever vaccination comes up online, and comments are enabled, the conversation quickly devolves into an extremity of outrage and vitriol that reads to me like ‘moral panic.’