BACTERIAL POISONS 9 



Several years ago Dr. Stalker traced an epidemic of horses, cattle, and 

 pigs, all of which had been affected with similar symptoms, the animals uni- 

 formly dying after an illness of about two days. The disease was not con- 

 tagious; the farm buildings were fairly comfortable and clean, and the trouble 

 was, evidently, not due to the food consumed by the animals on the farm. 

 Most of them, however, had been in the habit of drinking from a small creek 

 which ran through the premises. The stream was supplied by a series of 

 springs, and in ordinary seasons flowed for a portion of its course over a 

 gravelly bed. This season the rainfall was light, and it so reduced the supply 

 of water that it ceased to flow. Investigation made on these premises and on 

 the adjoining farms indicated that dead animals were thrown down the steep 

 bluffs into the bed of the stream. During the summer, chickens which had 

 died from cholera and hogs dead from hog cholera had been dumped into the 

 creek. In addition, the creek received the drainage from manure heaps. This 

 was the kind of water that these animals had had to drink. Stock which did 

 not have access to the creek but were watered from a well escaped the disease, 

 while stock on other farms having access to the creek water suffered from 

 the disease. 



Dr. Lewis and Mr. Nicholson, in Bulletin 66 of the Oklahoma Agricultural 

 Station, refer to certain troubles of live stock due to faecal contamination. In 

 many cases the pond from which stock is watered is situated where plowed 

 debris is carried into it by heavy rains, partially or completely filling it up, 

 while the stock tramping down the banks soon complete the process. Stock 

 standing in the pond also foul the water with excrement, and in hot weather, 

 when the water is low, such a pond certainly can not afford a very satisfactory 

 water supply. During the winter and spring months, when the rainfall is 

 abundant, this condition is not so noticeable since the water is being continually 

 changed by fresh water running in. 



One of the dangers that follow allowing stock of all kinds to stand in a 

 pond is that when the water is at a low stage, and foul, as it becomes in 

 summer seasons, the cattle will not drink a quantity of the hot, foul, surface 

 water, sufficient to prevent certain derangements of the digestive system such 

 as impaction, "dry murrain," and other conditions that are usually ascribed to 

 dry feed, but which are, in a large measure, brought about by insufficient 

 water. 



A type of injury resulting from the use of polluted water is illustrated in 

 volume 19, page 74, of the "Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics." 

 This record is in the form of evidence given in a case in which the plaintiff 

 is the tenant of a farm on which is kept a dairy herd of from 30-35 cows. In 

 1903, there was no complaint but in 1904 the cows were put to grass in the 

 middle of May and their condition became unsatisfactory at the end of July. 

 Early in September, one of the cows aborted, six others lost their calves be- 

 tween that date and the 7th of October. On the 19th of November, another 

 cow aborted; seventeen of the remaining ones carried their calves the full term 

 and four were barren. The cows drank water from a small lake about one 

 and a half acres in extent, which the town council of Maybole, who were the 

 defendants in the action, used for the deposit of rubbish from the town. 

 About the 18th of October, the cows were removed to another pasture with 

 different water supply, and only one cow slipped her calf. (This occurred 

 Nov. 19). The expert testimony was very conflicting. The plaintiff and expert 



