Water pollution—Wells

WATER POLLUTION—WELLS.
BY IRVING A. WATSON, M. D., SECRETARY OF THE N. H. STATE BOARD OF HEALTH.
REPRINTED FROM TRANSACTIONS OF N. H. MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1883.
CONCORD, N. H.: PRINTED BY THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION. 1885.


Poets have sung of the “babbling brooks” and the “mountain springs” with their “silver cascades.” Painters have sketched
“the placid stream,
Reflecting back the mirrored beam,”
in many a sequestered nook, where the beauty of the scene gave to the soul its grandest appreciation of nature’s handiwork; but the poet’s song and the painter’s canvas are too often the false airs and the tinsel drapery of Momus—fun and folly. But poets and painters live in a realm uncongenial to the startling facts of modern chemistry. Virgil would undoubtedly have been as ready to have believed that H₂O represented a glass of milk, as that it was the equivalent of pure water; while, if Raphael had been told that the pool of Bethesda was abundant with “albuminoid ammonia,” he might innocently have believed it to be “something good to eat.”
Tradition and popular education have taken wings in a tangent direction from many of the fundamental principles of a natural existence, and, while freighting the popular mind with its bulky chaff, sparsely grained, they seldom recognize the revelations of science. The plot of some well drawn novel, or the fascinating performances of its hero, rest unforgotten in the embrace of memory,—are sought after, cherished, and remembered in all and by all ages. Science as yet is but little courted, much less wedded to the popular taste, and the stubbornness of facts is in direct ratio to the inflexibility of the public mind. Science, however, is not always of one hue. It is full of attractions and alluring fascinations. It needs only to be clothed in well cut and fashionable garments, and properly and politely introduced, to receive universal recognition and popular applause. This is especially true of the science of sanitation, because it is more closely allied to the vital interests of every community and every family than all others, and, through the simplicity of its primary principles, can be realized and understood by all.