750 Water in Relation to Health and Disease. 
be thoroughly mixed with lime and allowed to stand in a heap 
for two or three months, when it may be used for arable land or 
high-land dressing, but on no account should it be applied to 
damp or swampy meadows. It is only recently that we were 
consulted as to a serious outbreak of parasitic disease among 
lambs, following upon the dressing of some park land with mud 
removed from an adjoining pond. 
Ponds in proximity to farmsteads are not only a source 
of danger in this respect, but they are also liable to serious 
befoulment in other ways. Dead fowls, not infrequently affected 
with tuberculosis, and also dead cats, and portions of the car- 
casses of other animals are often put out of sight by being cast 
into the horse-pond, where, besides being out of sight, they soon 
become out of mind, and seldom receive consideration in esti- 
mating the possible causes of any prevailing disease. Trees 
overhanging ponds are a source of organic pollution which 
should as far as possible be done away with. 
Pollution of Tanks and Troughs. 
Where water is stored in tanks it should be guarded against 
pollution by a well- fitting cover. In stables and farmsteads 
rats and mice are seldom absent, and it is no uncommon thing 
to find their decomposing remains in unprotected tanks. 
Moreover in large towns, where glanders prevails, suspicion 
of spreading the disease has on several occasions fallen upon 
water exposed to contamination in infected stables. 
It will readily be granted that no notice of water pollution 
in connection with farm animals would be complete without 
reference to water-troughs. Water-troughs in yards, especially 
where they are set low, frequently become charged with animal 
excrement, besides containing an occasional rat or chicken, or 
some other animal remains. It does not follow that any per- 
ceptible sickness may arise as the result of taking water from 
such a source so long as the putrid mass remains undisturbed, 
and a plentiful supply of water is kept in the tank. Serious 
and fatal sickness, however, results from time to time where this 
order is reversed, and especially if, by long fasting, young stock 
are tempted to drink freely of the putrid deposit. 
J. Wortley Axe. 
