134 ^ Brief Account of a Trial at Law, ^c, 



•die patient in the spring or summer following. Tliey 

 also agreed, unanimously, that from 1793 or 4, fevers 

 have been more frequent and malignant than in any pre- 

 ceding years, excepting that in the last season there ap- 

 peared an abatement in the number of cases and violence 

 of the disease. 



It v/as proved, that the same disease with the one un- 

 der consieleration, had prevailed in many places, in this 

 and the states of New- York and Massachusetts, within 

 the last five years, where no mill-dams or ponds could 

 have operated — on the most elevated hills, and in situa- 

 tions heretofore deem.ed the most healthy ; — that in 

 Great-Barrington, and West-Stockbridge, the disease 

 appeared remote from the ponds, while the people in the 

 vicinity of them enjoyed usual health. A respectable 

 physician, from Sheffield, gave an account of a very dis- 

 tressing fever, which had prevailed there since 1795. — 

 That a mill-dam was erected in 1787, to which it was 

 by many ascribed ; yet he declared, that from 1787 to 

 1795, great health prevailed, though the dam, during 

 that period, was as high as it had been since. He also 

 said, that during the spring of 1799, the dam was lower- 

 ed, and that the disease, the summer following, was 

 much more mild. 



It was admitted, that tlie exposing of vegetables or 

 animals, or other substances capable of being reduced 

 to sudden putrefaction, to the sun, by drawing off water, 

 draining ponds, or clearing up low grounds, tended to 

 produce disease : but certainty, or even connection, as 

 to particular instances in which this consequence had 

 followed, seemed scarcely attainable. 



It was obvious to all the hearers of this trial, that the 

 snore proof, the more doubt, and that the question grew 

 perplexed by investigation. And so fully were the court 

 and jury impressed witli this idea, that they decided in 

 Ikvor of the owner of the dam, and srave damaares accord- 

 mgly ; say nig that they could not find it proved a nui- 

 sance. 



New-Haven, March 12, 1800. 



