970 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



POLLUTION OF WELLS. 



smell of the barn-yard. The same pollution may occur by reason of the improper location 

 of the privy, though I believe that it does not occur as often as in the case of the others, for 

 sanitary work usually begins here, and even the mind uninstructed in sanitary matters 

 recognizes in a measure the dangerous character of human excrements, while it fails to see 

 the danger which lies in the emanations from barn-yards and decaying vegetable matters, from 



a belief that Nature is 

 competent of herself to 

 dispose of them. It is 

 not necessary to mention 

 in detail the diseases 

 which arise from impure 

 drinking water. Ty 

 phoid fever is one of 

 the most important, and 

 every country physician 

 can call to mind cases 

 in which he has traced 

 the disease to one of 

 these sources of water- 

 pollution. But there 

 are certain obscure cases 

 of disease from this 

 cause which are often 

 overlooked cases of 

 marasmus, so to speak, 

 in which there is m&amp;gt; 



well-defined malady, but a train of irregular syanptoms, one or more in a family being 

 affected; there is a general feeling of malaise, loss of appetite and weight, alternations of 

 diarrhoea with periods of regularity, and so on. These symptoms cannot be accounted for on 

 any ordinary principles of disease, but many times they are due to a chronic poisoning from 

 impure drinking water. Ask one of the family if the water is good and the reply will be, 

 &quot;Oh, yes, doctor, we have the best well in the neighborhood,&quot; and they will show a specimen. 

 It may be perfectly clear and tasteless, and apparently pure; but an examination of the sink 

 drain one of the other methods of well pollution will disclose them in close contiguity, 

 and evidently discharging a subtle poison into the water. % The important fact that apparent 

 purity is not a safe guide in estimating the purity of water is not generally known. But it 

 is true that analysis even often fails to detect the element which produces disease, when it 

 has been established beyond a doubt that it does exist in the water; the only safe criterion, 

 then, is absolute removal of the cause. 



Food. &quot;Give me an old-fashioned country dinner,&quot; sighs a well-fed man of the 

 world, tired of and satiated with the delights of artificial cookery; and indeed there is 

 nothing better calculated to appease the appetite and nourish the system than such a 

 repast properly prepared and cooked; but unfortunately our cookery is not of this high 

 character, and I am .compelled to go even farther, and say that country cookery, as a 

 whole, is behind the age, and in its preparation advantage is not taken of the knowledge 

 which science so readily affords. All the requisites for good food are met with in the 

 products of our country homes, but how sadly are they misused. Take, for instance, the 

 cooking of fresh meat. In the great majority of cases it is put into the frying-pan with a 

 little fat, and then subjected to a scorching or frying process at an intense degree of heat, 

 which soon deprives it of its juicy elements, and it goes upon the table dry and hardened and 

 difficult of mastication; and at last, when it does enter the stomach, and the process of 

 digestion is accomplished after much labor and exhaustion of nerve force, it affords but a 

 tithe of the nutriment which it originally possessed, and which proper cooking would have 

 developed and saved. Take, again, the article denominated pie. I shall not attempt to 

 detail the process by which flour and fat are mingled together and subjected to the baking 

 to bring forth that indigestible compound known as pie-crust; but it is safe to say that it is 

 responsible for a large share of the adult dyspeptics and pale, sickly children we are 

 constantly meeting with in this country, the chief delight of this latter class being to invade 

 the pantry and feed upon a huge slice of this compound, until the stomach is gorged to 

 repletion, and digestion weakened and exhausted. There are few housewives who know 



