68 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. | [June 23, 
The earliest clearly defined case of typhoid fever, we found to be 
that of Orson Grover, a boy 13 years of age, who, when taken sick with 
the disease on September 29th, was employed at Snyder’s Hotel, on 
Main street, near the four corners. Not only is the well at this place 
in close proximity to the privy (30 feet away), but half way between 
the well and privy we found a board slop-drain, which, undoubtedly, 
discharges into the well a considerable portion of its contents. The 
family claimed, however, that the water of this well had been considered 
bad for a year and half, and that none of it had been used for domestic 
purposes during that time ; the water so used having been all obtained 
from the well on the adjoining place to the north. As may be gathered 
from the map, this Snyder well is in the cellar, and the pump pertaining 
thereto is in a cellar landing just off the hotel kitchen. We found the 
pump in working order, with pail beneath the spout, partly filled with 
water, and with a dipper in the pail. On questioning the servant-girl, 
it appeared very evident that the water was sometimes used. 
The boy, Orson Grover, immediately on being taken sick, went 
home to the house of his mother, Mrs. R. K. Grover, whose residence 
is on Center street—first south of the school house. Within fifteen 
days thereafter no fewer than eight cases appeared among the children 
in attendance at the village school, and a second son of Mrs. Grover, 
living at home, was also taken with typhoid fever. In the meantime 
an adult person, Mrs. Steven Norton, living on the opposite side of the 
street from the school house, was taken sick, followed soon by the 
balance of the cases in other parts of the village. (The relation of the 
privy at Mrs. Grover’s residence to her own well, the school house well 
and other wells in the vicinity is so clearly shown in detail on the 
map, plate 5, that extended description is unnecessary here.) 
The large number of cases among the school children apparently 
indicated some special source of contagion to which they were exposed, 
and this special source, we think, is clearly indicated by the foregoing. 
The present state of knowledge of the causation of typhoid fever 
enables us to say positively that the disease is due to the presence, in 
the human organism of a rod-like bacillus, the so-called Bacillus typhosus 
or Eberth’s bacillus ; (See photographs, plates 6 and 7 and description 
of same.) that in the absence of this bacillus the disease cannot,exist ; 
that during the course of the disease large quantities of the bacilli pass 
away from the patient in the dejections; that the usual medium by 
which this bacillus passes into the human body is drinking water, and 
that drinking water containing in solution such human wastes as come 
