. American farming and stock raising, with useful facts for the household, devoted to farming in all its departments. Agriculture. 1806 THE AMERICAN POLLUTION OF WELLS. smell of the barn-yard. The same pollution may occur by reason of the improper location of the privy, thougli I believe that it does not occur us often as in the case of the others, for sanitary work usually begins here, and even the mind uninstructed in sanitary matters recognizes in a measure tiie dangerous character of human excrements, while it fails to see the danger which hesin the emanations from barn-yards and
. American farming and stock raising, with useful facts for the household, devoted to farming in all its departments. Agriculture. 1806 THE AMERICAN POLLUTION OF WELLS. smell of the barn-yard. The same pollution may occur by reason of the improper location of the privy, thougli I believe that it does not occur us often as in the case of the others, for sanitary work usually begins here, and even the mind uninstructed in sanitary matters recognizes in a measure tiie dangerous character of human excrements, while it fails to see the danger which hesin the emanations from barn-yards and decaying vegetable matters, from a belief that Nature is competent of herself to dispose of them. It is not necessary to mention in detail the diseases which arise from impure drinking water. Ty- phoid fever is one of the most important, and every country phj'sician can call to mind cases in which he has traced the disease to one of these sources of water- pollution. But there are certain obscure cases of disease from this cause which are often overlooked — cases of marasmus, so to speak, in which there is no well-defined malady, but a train of irregular symptoms, one or more in a family being affected; there is a general feeling of malaise, loss of appetite and weight, alternations of diarrhoea with periods of regularity', and so on. These symptoms cannot be accounted for on any ordinary principles of disease, but many times they are due to a chronic poisoning from impure drinking water. Ask one of the family if the water is good and the reply will be, "Oh, yes, doctor, we have the best well in the neighborhood," and they will show a specimen. It may be perfectly clear and tasteless, and apjarently pure: but an examination of the sink drain—one of the other methods of well pollution—will disclose them in close contiguity, and evidently discharging a subtle poison into the water. Tlie important fact that apparent purity is not a safe guide in estimating the puri
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
