34 ESSENTIALS OF VETERINARY LAW 



tected, under our present scientific infonuation a 

 manure pile may be considered as a nuisance if 

 located within a radius of six hundred feet. For- 

 merly it was only a i:>rivate nuisance at best, but 

 since flies are dangerous to the public health the 

 pile now must be regarded as a public nuisance, 

 and the owner may be subjected to a criminal 

 prosecution even though there be no specific en- 

 actment so mentioning manure piles. 



A manure pile which grows at the rate of a 

 wagon load a week is not likely to produce many 

 flies, unless the ground around it becomes satu- 

 rated. The outside of the pile is too fresh for the 

 maggots to have grown much, and the inside of 

 the pile has generally developed so much heat as 

 to kill those that have begun to grow. The little 

 pile by the side of a blacksmith shop, which takes 

 a month to produce a wheelbarrow load, is an ideal 

 place for the breeding of flies. Therefore, where- 

 as formerly it was only the large piles which were 

 considered as dangerous, now the veiy small piles 

 must be regarded as far more dangerous, and so 

 greater nuisances. 



It is such cases as the manure pile which show 

 another very great difference in the law of 

 nuisance. Foraierly the scientific ideas were in- 

 definite, and consequently health administration 

 was largely left to individual communities, and 

 was judged according to local needs and preju- 

 dices. Now, with the advancement of science it 

 is quite possible to make certain general laws and 

 applications. Health measures may therefore 

 assume scientific exactness, and it is possible for 

 any one to master the underlying principles, and 



