34 ESSENTIALS OF VETERINARY LAW 
tected, under our present scientific information a 
manure pile may be considered as a nuisance if 
located within a radius of six hundred feet. For- 
merly it was only a private 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 very 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. Formerly 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 
