78 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Of all the diseases which in Massachusetts, for the past 

 thirty-seven years, have been reported as the cause of death, 

 typhoid-fever has furnished 4.70 per cent, or about one in 

 every twenty deaths. Nearly five per cent of our Massachu- 

 setts deaths seem to be the result of typhoid-fever. And 

 the Registration Report for 1878 tells us that this disease " is 

 most prevalent in the rural districts." Yes, among the farmers 

 who have the longest lives, we find the largest per cent* of a 

 most potent filth disease. 



Now, why is it that the farming population suffer more 

 from this fever than do the crowded city populations, with 

 the condensation and accumulation of their animal excreta ? 

 Does it not seem that it is gross negligence, or a serious igno- 

 rance, which allows these pestilential germs of a fatal disease 

 to accumulate in the air and water of the farmer living on 

 the broad acres of his domain, where all such sources of 

 disease may be so easily, and at the same time profitably, 

 disposed of? 



In a very recent letter from Dr. Folsom, the secretary of 

 the Massachusetts Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity, he 

 says, " I have just investigated eight cases of typhoid-fever, 

 probably due to one well, and am started on another which 

 seems responsible for thirteen cases." 



The startling fact is here forced upon us, that probably 

 much of typhoid-fever, and other zymotic diseases, is pro- 

 duced by drinking the water from the artificial wells which 

 supply so large a part of our country population with drink- 

 ing and cooking water. 



Formerly it was universally believed that no water was so 

 pure as that procured from a well dug in the rock or soil of 

 the house-lot ; and in many cases it still is a true fact and 

 belief. Where there is the proper condition of soil, and 

 freedom from filth contamination, we are sure of pure water, 

 or water free from, organic impurity. But the fact is now 

 recognized, that, in many localities, both air and water travel 

 very freely under the surface of the soil we tread and live 

 upon. This is usually owing to the geological formation 

 upon which we live, or, in other words, the kind of soil or 

 rock beneath us. In some places the soil is so porous and 

 deep, that water will readily settle through it, and the filth 

 be retained in the top loam, so that ordinary cultivation, and 



