SOURCES OF CONTAMINATION. 27 



Field 21 says : 



In conclusion it would seem as though the only method to protect the public would 

 be to forbid the sale of fattened oysters, and to enforce it; also to see that oyster beds 

 were not subject to contamination from the streams used for sewage purposes, the most 

 important being the prevention of the process of "fattening" when the water was or 

 could be contaminated. 



The Connecticut State Board of Health 4 says: 



The chief damage from oysters, which are an admitted means of conveying certain 

 infectious diseases, comes from the custom of "floating" or "drinking" them in the 

 brackish and generally sewage-contaminated waters of rivers and harbors immedi- 

 ately before they are placed on the market. 



There is a widespread belief that the process is actually a fattening one induced by 

 the fresher water or by the greater abundance of food which often occurs in the places 

 chosen. Numerous observations have, however, shown that it is not a fattening or a 



FIG. 8 View at low tide showing dead hog covered at high tide by water washing oysters on a float within 

 150 feet. Wati>r and oysters were found contaminated from the float; the pollution, however, did not all 

 come from this source. 



growing process, as those terms are generally understood. An oyster used as a food 

 contains no more nutriment after the process than before. It is plumper because it 

 contains more water, but it is no more fattened by the absorption of the fresher water, 

 for a day or so than the calf is fattened when induced to drink large quantities of water 

 just before being sold to the butcher a process well known to make the animal look 

 plumper to the eye. Floated oysters are, however, fresher to the taste, and some 

 persons prefer this taste; others prefer the saltier flavor of those oysters marketed 

 directly from the saltier waters. It is, however, probable that the floated oysters are 

 more attractive to the average buyer, whether he be the consumer or the retail dealer. 

 But the places where the oysters are floated are more liable to sewage pollution than 

 the localities where they are grown, and hence the danger of the process unless the 

 streams or harbors when the floating is done are free from sewage pollution. * 

 The committee again strongly recommends that the "floating" be entirely discon- 

 tinued, both as a measure for diminishing the typhoid fever and also in the interest of 

 the oyster-growing industry in this State. 



