Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1892-02-19
AGRICULTURAL.
HEALTH ON THE FARM.
The Sanitation of Farms and
Farm Buildings.
A Paper by W. II. BOwker of Boston

Association at BrRttIcboro, Jan. IL.
1901.
In this paper shall coninc myself to Il
personal experience and, | assure you, a
sad one touching the unwholesomeness Of
farm buildings and their surroundings.
You will therefore pardon me if my re-
marks are somewhat personal to myself
and my family. In the year 1851 my
father bought farm in the northern part
of Worcester county, some six or seven
miles from the old homestead where the
family had lived for two or three genera
tions. Some fifteen or twenty years pre-
vious to its purchase there had been erect
ed upon it new buildings, and by their ar
rangement one would infer that they had
not been placed with any regard to con-
venience or beauty, but solely with refer
ence to the old wells which had been To-
Gated years before.
The family, prior to moving to this place,
had been strong and well, and subject only
to the ordinary ailments of life. The wa
ter which they had used at the old home
stead was pure, being drawn 10y we'll
sweep from a well located outside of the
house and away from the drainage, which
was in the opposite direction.
Soon after the purchase of this new
place sickness began to prevail in the fam
ily.s. The writer, being the youngest mem
Der, was taken with scarlet fever, and, re-
covering from that, within a year had a
mild form of typhoid fever; and again
some twelve years later, | had the same
fever in very dangerous form. For the
first fifteen years every member of the
family, seven i'm ALL were sufferers from
typhoid fever at one time or another, and
one sister died of this disease. There was
not year but that some member of the
family was sick, either from dysentery, ty-
! phoid or scarlet fever, or other diseases
which are supposed to emanate from germs.
Surely, if we had not come of a tough race,
our ancestors on both sides living to ripe
old age firmly believe there would have
! been none left to tell the tale.
/ /
1t had been built by Captain Lott Doane,
of seafaring fame. Ii had been owned by
Squire Powers, one of the leading men in
the town, and certainly nothing could be
wrong about it; for what Squire Powers
or Captain Doane didn't know about
church and state, shipping, sanitation, etc.
was not worth knowing. No one in those
days thought of the water as being a
source of danger, but during the last years
of sickness We became desperate, and final
ly determined to call in physician of eX-
perience and skill from Boston. On learn
ing the history of the sickness and death
which had occurred, he came Immediately
to the conclusion that something must be
wrong either with the drainage or the wa
ter supply. for he said no family could
have suffered as we had suffered with
out some primary cause to be foun'
either in improper drainage or impure
drinking water. We Immediately begaI
investigations, and while we knew the wei
was directly under the sill of the house
and the garden with porous soil back o
that on to which flowed the drainage o
the sinks, we had not thought to investt
gate what the inlet of the well might be
nor how porous the soil was in which TIN
well was dug. The examination revealed
that the springs feeding the well came from
the direction of the water-closet and barn
yard; also that the soil about the well wa
exceedingly porous, so that the drainage
unless it was taken up by growing plant
or trees, was bound to 60 directly to tn
lowest level, which of course was the bot
tom of the well.
Think of drinking water out of we
located not % feet away from the garde
upon which drainage had been poured fo
more than 50 years, and not hundre
, feet away from the water-closet, or owe
200 fleet from the barnyard. Yet thre
, families of fair intelligence did this thin
for know not how long. That the tir'
two families were not seriously i'll was prof.
ably due to the fact that the soil had not b'
come so contaminated with the sewage as
affect the drainage water or, what is MOI
likely, it had not happened to receive an
disease germs during their residence on I'll
place.
Is it any wonder that sickness resulted
| think it is remarkable that more sickne'
did not prevail and more death ensue.
can distinctly remember how sweet IL
water tasted, especially in the spring
the year; it was like green cucumbers
July.
We were seriously thinking of digging
new well because of this cucumber tast
We preferred our cucumbers green an
crisp rather than in solution. HOweve
we little thought that this sweet water WI
the vehicle of disease Our good old ID
Hoyt said: 81 can give you drugs, an
with your strong constitutions to ASST
I me, can perhaps break up the troubl,
| cannot tell when the end will come. b
| let me urge you to stone up this well und
| the house; get pure water from son
| source and you will have less occasion f
| my services or those of any other phys
| cian." Accordingly a new well was dI
| away from the house, large, deep al
| with plenty of ventilation at the TO
Wooden logs and a wooden pump were p
| in, and had the pleasure of assisting
this work, which, as you will immediate
see, resulted in so much good. We liv
| on the place for u wears afterwards al