Pittsburgh around 1900 was known as the Bottle Water capital of the US, more people purchased bottle water in Pittsburgh then any place else. The reason was simple, the Pittsburgh Water Supply was a known killer. You could use it for bathing and washing, but you did NOT use it for drinking or cooking.
By the 1930s Pittsburgh had finally solved the problems of its water supply (By Voting out the GOP that had controlled the city since the Civil War and put in Democrats who knew how to clean things up).
The funny part of it from the 1890s onward, the GOP would be caught in a Corruption scandal, the Democrats would be put in power, clean up the mess, and the GOP would win the next election. The key to the GOP hold on the City was they also controlled the Saloons. Prohibition broke up that control (with the GOP breaking into two factions, one that dependent on the Speak easies to stay in power, the other relying on Mellon money, when another scandal hit the GOP, the City went Democratic for they had liked the GOP who had support from the Speak Easies but they hated the GOP controlled by Mellon).
Thus all during the 1920s, Pittsburgh City Council, then voted at large, went from all GOP to all Democratic by 1934. No Republican has been elected to the Pittsburgh City Council since.
Back to bad water. When people lived on the farm, they became use to what ever bugs were in the local water. When they left their "home waters" they were exposed to bugs they bodies had NOT built immunity to and died. Thus the push after the Civil War, in most urban areas to develop water systems that filter out most impurities, and then mixed in Chlorine to kill what was left.
If you look at the Boar War of 1898, you will find the first war where more people died of battle wounds then disease (Through this calculation is done by excluding deaths in rear training areas, if we include those deaths, 13,000, we have a number that exceeds the 8000 battle related deaths).
The reason for this is the British made an effort to provide clean water to their troops. Every Army has done the same every since (reminding their troops only to drink from approved water sources and hauling water only from such sources, sources which mobile units make sure are "Clean" even if they have to do it themselves (which the British did less well in rear areas).
Side note: In 1898 another war was going on, the Spanish-American war, the last war where more soldiers died of disease then battle injuries, but the difference had to do with the canned food given to the Soldiers. The Food had salmonella, the cans had "Bubbles" indicating the presence of salmonella. The cans of food were feed to the troops anyway, and it zoomed US loses to disease during that war. Thus Salmonella killed seven times the American soldiers during the Spanish-American war then did bullets. 87% of all deaths do to disease in the Spanish American war was do to salmonella, most in troops that never left the States:
http://books.google.com/books?id=runNmwEO7mQC&pg=PT113&lpg=PT113&dq=salmonella+Spanish+American+war&source=bl&ots=crqSIfPOCF&sig=br_uRtCRkw9gdAPdzWou4bp_HIc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rVWmUrrBKOW_sQTzkYGoBA&ved=0CDMQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=salmonella%20Spanish%20American%20war&f=false
www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/g4158/.../2004/Salmonella.ppt?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio-typhoid.htm
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