On examination the cess-pool was found to be connected directly with
the well by a pipe, and when the cess-pool became full, its contents
regurgitated into the well. The Board of Health examined the premises,
condemned the well and ordered that both privy vault and cess-pool be
cleaned out without delay. I understand that it is quite common in this
city to connect the cess-pool with the well by a pipe so that the waste
water may be readily conveyed away; but if people knew the danger to
be feared from such an arrangement, greater care in the construction
of drains would be exercised. Hundreds of cases might be related where
in houses fitted with all that taste could desire, and gold procure, a
siphoned trap, or in the absence of a trap, an imperfect joint, or an
old brick drain, or riddled soil pipe, defects easily remedied if known
to exist, have undermined the health of adults and slain the little
ones. In the first sample a large quantity of animalculæ were revealed
by the microscope. Fox states that “the existence of animal life in a
water affords good evidence in itself of the presence of a very
sensible amount of organic matter, _alias_ filth. These little
creatures feed and flourish on what we call organic matter, and in
perfectly pure water they cannot live. A perfectly pure water contains
no suspended matter nor any animal or vegetable life. The ova of the
round and the thread worms, the eggs and joints of the tapeworm and
small leeches, which may give rise to grave disorders, should not be
forgotten in making microscopic examinations of drinking waters.”
Good water is both a necessity and a priceless blessing. Foul water
is a scourge and a messenger of death. No one except a brute would
hesitate which to choose if he could tell one from the other. It is
only with the grosser pollution of water that chemists can apply their
science. Infinitesimal pollution cannot be estimated by the skill of
any chemist. It is the careful physician who decides more accurately
in regard to the purity of water than the chemist. Sir Benj. Brodie in
speaking of the detection of infinitesimal pollution says: “I think
you have a much better chance of getting at these relations through
accurate medical statistics, properly applied, than you have through
chemical analysis, because chemical analysis is one of the poorest
things possible to reach those delicate quantities. You cannot get at
these small quantities at all; chemical analysis must be limited by our
power of weighing and measuring. It may go on to a certain point, but
we cannot go beyond that point.”
The well from which the second sample was taken, was within twenty-five
feet of a privy vault twenty feet deep. Several families used water
from the well. Two cases of