Water in Relation to Health and Disease. 747 
ish taste. When the well was filled up the epidemic ceased. 
The bacteriological examination of the water itself and the inocu- 
lation of mice therewith gave negative results. The author sent 
for some of the soil of the pen, and of the mud at the bottom of 
the well from which the suspected water had been taken. No 
anthrax bacilli were found in the soil of the pen, but from the mud 
of the well bacilli were obtained which killed rabbits and mice, 
their bodies presenting the post-mortem appearances of anthrax. 
Moreover, cultures made from their blood left no doubt as to 
the nature of these bacilli. Not only are these organisms capable 
of living in the mud of our watercourses and receptacles, but 
they are also able to retain their vitality for weeks in farmyard 
manure. This latter fact has been demonstrated again and 
again in our own experience, and never more clearly than in the 
outbreak of anthrax recorded by the writer in the Society’s 
Journal, 1874. 1 The disease in this case broke out on a farm 
in the occupation of Mr. Darby, of Stoke-under-Ham. It first 
appeared in some sheep, which led to the infection of a pasture 
adjoining the farmstead. A horse turned into this enclosure 
became sick and died, and was opened in the crew-yard, the 
manure of which became saturated with blood from the infected 
animal. This event was succeeded by several weeks of dry 
weather, during which no extension of the disease took place ; 
but the next heavy rainfall had the effect of washing out the 
virus from the manure into an adjoining pond, with the result 
that eight horses, after drinking water therefrom, succumbed to 
anthrax. As manure heaps are frequently deposited near to 
drains bounding enclosures, it is not difficult to understand how 
infection may be conveyed from the farmstead to distant water- 
courses to start new centres of disease, the origin of which 
is seldom suspected. 
It is a well-known fact that since the difficulties of disposing 
of sewage have brought “ sewage farms ” into existence, 
the pernicious effects of foul water have frequently been 
demonsti’ated in our courts of law. In a case in which we were 
engaged some time ago it was shown that, owing to the dis- 
proportion between the amount of sewage to be disposed of and 
the area of the farm over which it was distributed, the soil often 
became supersaturated. As a consequence filtration was not 
only incomplete, and the effluent water highly charged with 
organic matter, but a large amount of crude sewage drained off 
the surface into an adjoining watercourse, with the result that 
the cows on the next farm aborted, milk became unwholesome, 
1 Report on the Health of Animals of the Farm. Journal, 2nd Series, Yol. X , 
1874, p. 559. 
