high, thereby increasing the expense of construction, although it was originally intended to have it only thirty feet, which would have given ample draught. The total cost was about $350. No fuel of any kind other than the garbage is used or needed, unless the fire is allowed to burn out, when, of course, some fuel is necessary to start the new fire. One man has charge, and after putting in the day's garbage, generally limits his attention to raking dry garbage over the fire at noon and again at sunset."

This appears to be a very simple, effectual, and comparatively inexpensive furnace for the complete destruction of garbage. The principle involved no more nor less than the recent modifiIcation of the magazine stove,-sometimes erroneously termed base-burner, whereby the coal is placed in chambers opening through the side, instead of being filled into the center of the magazine through the top of the stove or furnace.

This modification became necessary to secure a constant supply of fuel to hot-air or steam-heaters, the height of which was such as to preclude filling the magazine from the top, and I cannot see why some form of a furnace, portable, and therefore kept in stock like the ordinary furnace or steam-heater, might not be constructed for $100 or less, that would be capable of the destruction of from three to ten cubic feet of garbage per diem. Whenever this can be done for an investment of one or two hundred dollars, it will not pay to make an investment of one thousand dollars in swine and run the risk of an epidemic of hog-cholera.

Whenever a furnace can be fitted up for a moderate amount, it can be made a paying investment for some enterprising Yankee to erect one at such places of summer resort as the Weirs, the Heading Camp-ground, or other similar places of temporary abode, charging a moderate fee for taking care of all the garbage from each house or hotel.

It would probably be far better for large hotels and railway restaurants to erect stationary furnaces, as the supply would be permanent.

UNSANITARY WELLS.*

BY WILLIAM CHILD, M. D., NEW HAMPTON, N. H.

To intimate that your neighbor's children are ugly, and to suggest that his well is not sanitary, are unpardonable offenses. This domestic sensitiveness is universal, and the more truthful the accusation the greater the offense.

An unsanitary water supply is a disgrace and a danger; a disgrace because preventable, a danger because it may produce sickness and death. Careful observers declare that the water from ninety-five in one hundred wells is unsanitary, and that its domestic use is detrimental, causing the slightest indisposition or the most malignant fever.

To demonstrate these statements is no part of this paper. Facts to prove them are recorded; others are constantly appearing. Only physicians and sanitarians can have personal and practical knowledge of these facts and their significance, yet they are relative facts of the most vital importance to the public, facts that must be repeated and emphasized.

The adjective terms used in this connection must be considered here. Bad, foul, pure, impure, contaminated, polluted, infected, unhealthy, and healthy are words used indiscriminately, and thus confuse the general reader, losing their significance and force. Literally there is no pure water; water may be impure and yet be sanitary, may be impure and not polluted, may be polluted and not contaminated, may be contaminated and not infected, may be infected and yet be as sparkling as a diamond and as clear as crystal, may be charged with the germs of most

*Read, by invitation, at the April meeting of the board

virulent disease, yet make no reply to the most delicate chemical

tests.

The following terms, with their application, are suggested. Pure and impure should be abandoned. Pure is wrong, because there is no pure water upon the earth's surface. Impure misleads, because to the general reader it indicates unsanitary, whereas water may have impurities within certain limits and yet be sanitary.

Intelli

Now, then, pure and impure in this connection should be abandoned. Then we have sanitary, unsanitary, polluted, contaminated, and infected water. The meaning and application of sanitary and unsanitary are apparent. Polluted indicates merely filthy water. This may be disagreeable to taste, sight, smell, and every sense of decency, yet may not be unsanitary. Contaminated indicates water so surcharged with animal and vegetable waste as to render its domestic use unsanitary. Infected water contains the germs of specific disease, and its domestic use will cause the same to be repeated. These terms thus applied have a manifest and precise meaning evident to the non-professional reader. Thus we may have sanitary, unsanitary, polluted, contaminated, and infected water. Each has a distinct character, and can be recognized by chemical tests or their effects upon men. gent investigators, men who can have no possible interest in the matter, more or less, than the exact truth, declare that the water in nearly every common well is properly described by one more of the above terms. Physicians and sanitarians accept this, and in some degree appreciate its importance, but the public seem indifferent and unbelieving. Many consider boards health useless and sanitary expenditures wasteful, sanitary laws despotic and their execution aggression. Some consider the whole matter an amusing comedy, but suddenly they will find it a terrible tragedy. One Plymouth, Penn., epidemic in a century ought to arouse the indifferent and convince the doubting. seem to have a melancholy interest in disregarding all sanitary cautions; they adhere strangely to an unsanitary well. It brings to mind two boy brothers who had the itch. The mother dis I covered that they daily resorted to their chamber, and there

stripped to the skin scratched each other with a stiff brush.

or

of

Men

The

mother at once inaugurated a cure with the usual sulphurous unguent; but the boys objected, declaring they would not be deprived of the exquisite fun of being scratched when they itched. But where there can be pleasure in polluted water does not appear. How does well water become unsanitary? It is difficult to convince men that a well of considerable depth, on apparently high ground, with clean surface surroundings, with water clear, cool, and odorless, can possibly be unsanitary; but a little careful attention will show conclusively that it is so.

Some important facts must be noticed here. All food taken by men and animals is made up of the most highly organized albuminous and nitrogenous compounds. While these, in a sound condition, properly digested, and normally assimilated, are a perfect nutrition for men and animals, so, also, are they, when partially decayed or are undergoing putrefactive fermentation, and not disinfected by vegetation, oxygenation, the influences of wind, rain, and sun, capable of generating the most virulent poisons known to man. A few particles of a poison thus produced, injected into the veins of an animal, will cause death almost instantly.

Then, again, certain mineral and metallic poisons may be found in the water of our best wells, both from natural and artificial sources. Copper, arsenic, and lead may accumulate from unsuspected sources.

Also germs of disease thrown out from the sick-room upon the earth may and do find lodgment in the well's bottom, and thence find their way into the bodies of those drinking water therefrom, and reproduce the parent disease from which they originated. It is supposed that all infectious diseases may be reproduced in this manner. Beyond a doubt typhoid is often, generally, thus propagated.

Now, then, keeping in mind the above facts, let us examine one or a thousand of our grand old farm establishments of one hundred years' standing. Clustered on a few square rods of land, are the farm buildings, the dwelling, woodshed, wash-house, horsestable, cow-barn, sheep-yard, swine-house, hen-house, corn-house, compost-heap, cesspool, and privy. All these are arranged in a hollow square, and in their midst is the farmer's well with its curb,

sweep, and bucket, or its cover, pipe, and pump. Around this center are concentrated all the activities of life upon a New England farm. Birth, life, and death; bloom, fruit, and decay of men and animals, of shrubs and trees, have transpired here for a century. All the waste has been dropped upon the surface, there to accumulate, decay, putrefy.

Then, again, the bottom of the well, the very center of all these activities, must be at or below the level of the natural water basin of the immediate vicinity, and must rest upon or in clay, marl, or rock impervious to water. The well is excavated through sand, gravel, drift, or other earth pervious to water. conditions must exist or there can be no well.

All these

The

Now let us picture the life upon these few square rods for one hundred years. In and about these buildings live three hundred creatures,―men, beasts, and birds. They are stabled here during winter and yarded here during summer; here they take their daily food and drink, and discharge their daily waste. During one hundred years there have been nearly eleven million days of animal existence, all within drainage and leaching distance of the source of the water supply of the whole establishment. amount of waste that can not be removed by evaporation, drain. age, or absorption is enormous. The fact must be apparent to the most skeptical, that the earth beneath farm buildings, stables, cesspools, and privy vaults, and about wells near the same, is sur charged with animal and vegetable waste. This point must be conceded by all. It needs but a moment's attention to convince the dullest mind that every establishment with only the usual sanitary precautions, is resting upon and above a mass of most dangerous filth, and that this filth is being daily leached into bottom of the well.

the

Now we will leave it to the common sense of men to estimate the condition of such water. It is not a matter of guess-work, nor fancy; it is a fact that can not be disputed. There can be but one conclusion, viz., that the use of water from such a source must be repugnant to every sense of decency; must be detrimental to perfect health; must impair nerve force; must dimin

ish vitality of body and

activity of mind; must derange

the

circulation of the fluids; and all this must result in congestious