132 BACTERIA IN WATER. 



one of the sources of typhoid epidemics which has been found com- 

 mon, and many instances of almost exactly these conditions could 

 be given. Nearly three hundred typhoid epidemics have been 

 traced to milk, many of which are directly attributable to the well. 

 The trouble arises partly from carelessness, but chiefly from ignor- 

 ance. Certainly, for his own health and that of the community 

 which he supplies with milk, every farmer should be impressed 

 with the fact that the problem of his well is most critical. It should 

 be scrupulously guarded, and should be located in such a place as to 

 render drainage from the privy vault an impossibility. The safest 

 thing would be to give up the well entirely and depend upon some 

 spring or reservoir; but where this is impossible the well should be 

 on higher ground than the privy vault, or be removed from it not 

 less than one hundred feet. 



Unfortunately, everyone who has been brought up on a farm is 

 likely to feel that this danger is imaginary, at least for his own 

 particular home. He has drunken water from the well all his life, 

 and so have his fathers before him, and he cannot be convinced of 

 any danger therein. But the fact remains that many a well of 

 exactly this sort has been the cause of typhoid. Though used for 

 years without suspicion it has, nevertheless, been a means of death. 

 The trouble gives no warning, when it comes, and the well which has 

 been pure for years may suddenly begin to distribute typhoid fever 

 bacilli without the least suspicion on the part of those using it. In 

 ignorance the farmer not only drinks the water himself, but dis- 

 tributes the germs to the city, insisting all the while that his well has 

 "the finest water in the country." The only safeguard is either to 

 abandon the well entirely, or to have such an absolute isolation be- 

 tween his vault and his well as to make communication between 

 them by soil drainage an absolute impossibility. 



Since the water in the well is likely to become contaminated with 

 typhoid bacteria, if excreta are thrown upon the ground or are 

 placed in a vault in the vicinity of the well which is used for drinking 

 or dairy purposes, especial care should be taken that no surface 

 rivulets in time of rain should run toward the well. If they do, 

 contamination of the water by surface drainage is almost certain. 



