DR. CURRIER’S REPORT.
The farm-house, from the well of which was taken the specimen of polluted water, is situated on a high bluff of land south-east of the village, and is known by the name of East Mountain. Upon this ridge of land are situated some of the best farms in town. The soil is rich and deep, underlying which is a sub-soil of clay, very hard and compact, but occasionally interrupted by a deposit of sand. I have been told there were beds of sand in the vicinity of this dwelling-house.
Diagram No. 2.
By the diagram sent, you will see that the well is under the L part of the house. The water is drawn up by means of a windlass in one of the back rooms. The well itself is some twenty-five feet deep. In the summer kitchen, not more than three or four feet from the well, you will notice the sink marked 2 on the diagram, which discharges its water on the ground by means of an open spout but a few feet from the outside of the building. At 3, about an equal distance from the well, is a back door, from which foul water, as on washing-days, and filth of nearly all descriptions, were usually thrown, which is not saying more than can be said of back doors to farm-houses in general.
As you step out of this door, a little to your left you will see the pig-sty, the centre of which cannot be more than fifteen feet from top of well. The privy marked 4 is entered from the walk leading from the well-room to the barn-yard, the excrements of which are received upon the ground. The distance from the door, 7, that opens into the barn-yard, and the well, is just twenty-four feet by actual measurement. Stepping out of this door you are in the barn-yard filled with cattle and sheep, on the further side of which is the barn with its usual manure heap and decomposing vegetable matter in general. Thus we have the barn, barn-yard, privy, pig-sty, back door, and sink all in dangerous proximity to the well, either one of which might contaminate its water, and render it unfit for use.
It was on the 8th of March, 1883, that I procured the second specimen of water from this well that I sent you. For over three months prior to that date the ground had been frozen and covered with snow, with no thaws during the whole winter severe enough to cause any surface-water. The winter was what is called a dry one, all the wells in that vicinity being remarkably low, so that there could be no surface-water finding its way into the well on that date, and probably had not for months previous: the influence of the surroundings at that time must have been at the minimum. If the water is bad under this condition, what must it be soon after the frost is out, and the well becomes filled with its maximum of surface-water?
Now the interesting question comes, What has been the effect upon the health and lives of the family or families occupying this house and using this water? I am informed that they did not use the water at all times, under suspicion that it might not be good: still it was used more or less.
Forty-one years ago the place was purchased and occupied by a man then in the prime of life. He had seven children, some of whom were born before and some after moving upon the place. The father, mother, and all the children are now dead, except one.
The date, age, and cause of death, as near as I can find out, are as follows:
1849, a son, age 18 years; cause, typhoid fever.
1849, a daughter, age 16 years; cause, typhoid fever.
1863, a son, age 28 years; cause, consumption.
1871, mother, age 63 years; cause, gall stones; great sufferer from sick headache.
1874, a daughter, age 27 years; cause, consumption.
1878, a son, age 37 years; cause, consumption.
1879, a daughter, age 34 years; cause, consumption.
1879, father, age 76 years; cause, old age, feeble a long time.
1883, a son-in-law, age 47 years; cause, bronchial consumption.
This last was the only one of whom I had charge, and it was during one of my professional visits that I discovered the situation of the well. One of the first things of which he complained was sore throat and hoarseness, laryngo-pharyngitis. At the same time he was troubled with an eruption. I never saw it, but as he described it I should say that it was erythematous in its nature. If he exercised so as to perspire, or took hot drinks, it would make its appearance, causing the surface to itch and feel very uncomfortable.
During the spring and summer of 1882 he was under the care of various physicians, both regular and irregular, until the first of October of that year, when he came under my care, at which time he was troubled with cough and hoarseness, it being with difficulty that he spoke aloud. The stomach was very irritable, frequently rejecting food, and more often his medicine. Once when he was in my office for the purpose of consultation, I inquired in regard to his drinking-water. He told me that it was “splendid water,” and all right; that he drank a great deal of it. At various times during the fall and early winter he would seem to improve, when some imprudence on his part would put him back. Finally he grew worse, as manifested by failing strength, loss of appetite, and by coughing and raising more, until his death.
The sputa was very tenacious, and at last was quite thick, and composed almost entirely of pus. A few weeks before he died I examined his chest thoroughly. There was no dulness over either lung, and he could fill both of them equally well. Auscultation revealed very heavy, moist rales.
About five weeks before the death of the father,—that was some time in January,—I was called to the house to attend his son, a lad six years of age, with dysentery accompanied with petechial eruption over the limbs and body. He recovered slowly. In about two weeks two other sons, aged respectively eight and ten years, came down in the same way with dysentery and the eruption, causing them to scratch vigorously. The mother was troubled with the eruption, but no dysentery.
D. M. Currier.