EFFECTS OF AN IMPURE SUPPLY OF WATER. 
459 
in the system. I should think that a deficiency of these con¬ 
stituents would rather tend to produce a diminution in size, and, 
as is the case in osteo-malacia in adults, softening of the bone, 
it seems to me that it requires something that acts as an irritant 
specifically upon the osseous system, causing metastatic inflam¬ 
mation and a peculiar enlargement and destructive degenera¬ 
tion which is always present, and until this matter is thoroughly 
cleared up by some of our enthusiastic, pains-taking, and highly 
esteemed investigators, I shall continue to remove my patients 
to other localities, if possible, and maintain the strictest sanitary 
precautions. 
EFFECTS OF AN IMPURE SUPPLY OF WATER. 
By Wilson Huff, V. S., Romf, N. Y. 
Prepared to be read before the New York State Veterinary Medical Society. 
We are in almost absolute ignorance as to the effects of an 
impure supply of water on the health of animals ; the general 
impression that any water is good enough for horses and cattle 
to drink has perhaps to account for this state of affairs. There 
can, however, be no doubt that as precise investigations pro¬ 
ceed and greater care is shown in the inquiry into, and accur¬ 
acy of, examination of the causes operating in producing dis¬ 
ease among animals, impure water will have its legitimate share 
allotted to it. Of one thing we are convinced : that however 
inert impure water may have been to animals in a wild state, 
the more we subject them to an artificial existence as the result 
of civilization, the more we remove from them the immunity 
they may have possessed against common causes of disease and 
the greater the liability is there for causes which originally 
may never have existed, to become developed. What are the 
substances in water which are liable, then, to provoke disease? 
We have animal organic matter, vegetable organic matter 
(particularly that of marshes), the germs of specific diseases, 
and some of the salts. 
Commencing with the latter first, we know the result on 
