A Brief Account of a Trial at Law ^ ^c. 133 



York, and Pennsylvania, had been followed with fevers 

 of the same type with that at New-Milford. It was tes- 

 tified by a respectable physician, that he had visited a 

 ikmily in Kent, living on one of the highest hills, and 

 that several persons in the house were severely afflicted 

 with a bilious fever ;•— that on examination, he discover- 

 ed a small pond, nearly dry, in which there was a great 

 quantity of dead fish, producing a very loathsome 

 stench ; — that the pond was speedily covered with fresh 

 iCarth, and health was restored. 



It was contended by the plaintiff, that raising the dam 

 would not be injurious, unless thereby more ground was 

 overflowed from which effluvia would arise ; and this was 

 denied, since the water was now kept within the well de- 

 fined banks of the river ;— that the situation of the town 

 was favorable to disease, being circumscribed by high 

 hills, and consequently subjected to a bad state of air ; 

 and that there M^ere causes sufficient, without resorting 

 to the dam to account for the fever. It was proved, that 

 in the year 1796, as early as the 20th of July, there were 

 many cases of the bilious fever, strongly marked ; and 

 that, at that time, the dam was not raised or altered from 

 its usual height; — that the same fever had existed in 

 many preceding years, from 1782; — that in 1799, after 

 the destruction of the dam complained of, and vv^hile it 

 stood with the water at its ancient level, the same fever 

 raged, though with less malignancy, and in situations 

 more remote from the mill-pond. These were urged as 

 sufficient to encounter the presumption arising from the 

 facts previously stated. 



It was also proved, that in 1757, a malignant fever, 

 (as it was then denominated,) raged, to the destruction 

 of about forty inhabitants ; — that in 1777, the dysentery 

 prevailed, said to have been brought from the army, and 

 that the fever and ague had always been a disease of 

 New-Milford ; — -that the towns through which the Hou- 

 satonic river runs, have been frequently visited with 

 bilious fevers, and that too where no mill-dams could be 

 resorted to as the causes. 



The physicians concurred in opinion, that persons are 

 seldom attacked with this fever more than once durins: 

 an epidemic, but that the fever and ague frequently visits 



