SOURCES OF CONTAMINATION. 27 
Field 7! 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” 
could be contaminated. 
when the water was or 
The Connecticut State Board of Health * 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 
Fic. 8 —View at low tide showing dead hog covered at high tide by water washing oysters on a float within 
150 feet. Water 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. 
