THE BLIND CESSPOOL. 83 



within the circle, the occupant may feel safe. If, for exam- 

 ple, a well is fifteen feet deep, there should be no sink-drain, 

 barnyard, or privy, within forty-five feet. 



The two accompanying cuts from a circular issued by the 

 Massachusetts Board of Health show what is a too common 

 condition of things as connected with the source of water- 

 supply to the ordinary farmhouse, and the sources of house 

 and barn filth about it. 



But some one asks, Why not cesspools? Haven't they 

 always been used, and are they not everywhere now ? Too 

 true, alas, too true ! And, if the causes of our pestilential 

 diseases could be fairly written out, he would be a dull 

 scholar who didn't learn that first-class diphtheria, scarlet- 

 fever, dysentery, and their sisters, often claim a parentage at 

 the cesspool. 



As some one has said that the cesspool is the " king of 

 stinks," so it must be added it too often is a prime cause of 

 many dangerous diseases. 



And yet, in some cases, it is almost a necessity that cess- 

 pools exist. There are certain conditions of location and 

 surroundings that seem to compel their existence. A blind 

 cesspool whose only outlet is the soakage into the immedi- 

 ately surrounding earth, and which is seldom if ever emp- 

 tied, should never be tolerated. To be sure, the most faithful 

 mother-earth will absorb and deliver over to plant and tree 

 roots a great amount of death-producing filth; but sooner 

 or later, and sooner in some soils than in others, the absorp- 

 tive power is exhausted. One, two, or three years may pass, 

 and all be lovely ; but by and by, dysentery, enteric fever, or 

 something of a kindred nature, will break out, and frighten 

 a whole community, and all, it may be, because of a cess- 

 pool with its cumulative poison, because a large area of 

 ground soil is full of the fever contagium, and it finds its 

 way seeking to destroy the fairest, loveliest, best, and ten- 

 derest in our homes. 



Pettenkofer believes that the air conveys the poison from 

 the soil. The only way in which a cesspool should be toler- 

 ated by law — and conscience — is to have a water-tight 

 receptacle with no outlet, unless there be plenty of water 

 running near by, or a sewer; which receptacle, whenever 

 full, should be emptied, either into a heap of dry loam, or 



