The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-05-18
The Water We Drink.---II.
BY HON. GEORGE GEDDEs.

must well ne 10 ne SNIp from Inc urnln-
age!
This question was asked me years
ago by one of the leading agricultural
writers of our times. ] could not then,
nor can now, give any definite or OK
act answer. One high authority had
said the distance between the well and
privy, or ccss-pOol, must not be less
than twice the depth of the well-that
is, if the well is fifty feet deep, the
source of contamination must be at
least one hundred feet Really there is
no such thing as safely stating the dis
lance. The character of the soil, the
dip of its qualification, and the quantity
of fluid emptied into the vault. are each
points 10 be considered.
As long ago as 1904, sit was forbid
den to bury within the precincts of
cities and towns Gin France), and four
years afterwards decree was issued
that no one should dig well within
twenty rods of any cemetery, and that
the old wells should be filled up; and
VI. i-cfoit thinks tw,nt, iu,l- I, not al
ways sufficient to protect the wells"
DIR. kedzic cites the case ofGrand Rap
ids, Michigan. where many people were
sick Of typhoid, or typho-malarial fever,
caused by their wells being sunk into
ground poisoned by the drainage of n
graveyard. lie says "the impcrvious
clay (overlaid by the gravel that extern
ied to the gravc-yard) served as q wa
ter she'd To convey the liberation of the
graves directly into the wells, and these
poor people were drinking cold infu-
sion Of DEATH
The most extraordinary case of all. is
that of the village of Lauscn, Switzcr-
land, where all the people except those
living in six houses procured their wa
ter from one spring. There was an
outbreak of typhoid fever in nearly
every house except the six that did not
use water from the spring-one hum
dred and thirty people, II per cent. of
the whole population, besides II chill
dren, who received the infection while
at home from school during the holi-
days, and who sickencd away from their
homes at their schools, had the disease.
The spring was naturally suspected as
the source of the disease, and the cause
was found mile away at an isolated
farm house on the opposite side of a
ridge of land, where an imported case
of typhoid fever, followed by two 9TH
crs, had occurred shortly before the out
break. But how could the waters of
this valley, mile away, high land in
iervehing, find way under that high
land TO the spring in Lauscn?
The geological formation of the land
answers the question. From the valley
where the house was situated, in which
the disease commenced, there extended
10 the valley of Lalseh stratum of
porous earth, based on some impervious
Iloor, dipping towards Lausen, and the
water of a small brook that ran near
the house, and into which the deiec-
tons OF the three typhoid patients was
thrown, and in which their linen was
washed, being used TO irrigate some
meadows, sunk into the gravel, and
passed through that gravel, under the
highlands, fed the Lausen spring and
poisoned it. But for the very careful
experiments made, which demonstrated
that substances placed in the waters of
the brook did appear in the spring a
mile away, ono might d0nht the reality
of this alleged transfer of typhoid pois-
on for so great distance. Salt to the
amount of eighteen cwt. was dissolved
at the meadows, which was followed by
its appearance in the spring. Fifty cwt.
of flour was then mixed with the water,
but none of ii appeared in the spring,
'thus showing that the water was fl
tered through the intervening earth,
and did not pass by an underground
channel.-lKedzie. The earth would
filter out the flour that was suspended
in the water, but could not take out the
alt that was dissolved. DIR. Kedzie
pertinently asks the qucstion-''If mile
of porous earth is not an adequate sani-
iary filter, can we safely rely on few
feet, or even rods, of any kind of soil,
as an cfiectual sanitary filter to arrest
diseased germs or infections poison?'
Certainly the foundation has been
laid for the assertion that the soil of n
city or closely populated village, sooner
or later, becomes poisoned by the priv
les and waste waters of the inhabitants,
and that all wells sunk in such soils are
only attempts 10 Use the same water
over and over again, taking the risks of
all diseases whose germs may, at any
time, have found their way into these
waters. To show how little thought is
given to this matter, even by persons
who should understand the whole sub
ject, will state that | have heard n
physician of large practice congratula-
ling himself on the excellent quality of
the water in the well at his residence in
thu midst of a dense population of ci-
ty, and having privics and stables In its
immediate vicinity.
While the facts l have given address
their lessons to people living on farms
as well as to those living in towns,
wish still farther TO warn all classes, by
other facts, and modern instances
many of them derived from the reports
of the Michigan Board of Health.
At Okemas, Michigan, a girl fourteen
years old, suffering with continued fe-
yer, brain symptoms-other members