Water pollution—Wells

by Irving A. Watson

WATER POLLUTION—WELLS.

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.

Pure water is essential to the health and comfort of every community: there is no argument to the contrary. How such a desideratum can be acquired and maintained is a problem which requires the closest application of science, as well as mechanical and engineering skill. The question, whenever and wherever applied, becomes an isolated reality, and the solution, instead of being based upon established formulas or analogy, is almost wholly dependent upon the individual facts and conditions connected therewith.

The aspect of the question a century hence will be very different from what it is to-day, even as in its present bearings it differs from the time when the woodman’s axe was the only sound of industry that echoed through the sleeping valleys and over the watchful hills of New Hampshire. In that day the hardy pioneer quenched his thirst by the side of any stream or spring with water as pure as earth could give. He thought not to glance up the stream to see if it was spanned by a family vault, or flanked by a barn-yard. Likewise, if he partook from the bubbling spring or the primitive well, he never imagined a crystal of urea came up in the tiny fountains of sand at its bottom, or that the sparkle of the water was the carbonic acid of a sink drain; for around him were no such dangers. But civilization (in many respects a misnomer) came on, and brought with her more evils than one,—seduced the virginity of nature, and begot a host of illegitimate products and conditions. Into her very veins—the streams and rivers—have been injected the effete products of waste and decay; and to-day her very gifts, poisoned by men, bring pain, poverty, tears, and death into many households.

We have all, no doubt, traced some cases of the zymotic order to polluted water, with evidence that left no doubt as to the correctness of our conclusions. As to how far such influences extend in the causation of disease is undetermined, but I believe it extends far beyond the category of acute zymotic diseases.

What of the great invalid corp that register their physical afflictions under the comprehensive term “poor health,” and who seem to have no specific disease, either acute or chronic? What demon has laid so oppressive a burden upon the nerve centres that half of life’s function is smothered, and the physical energies nearly blotted out? I believe that contaminated water is one of the prime factors in this unfortunate and distressing aggregate. We have often traced typhoid fever, dysentery, and other diseases to a polluted well or spring; but the cause of insidious decay, progressive pallor, softening muscles, wasting strength, and slow enervation is not so readily found nor so zealously sought after. That contaminated water should produce such results, associated perhaps with other unsanitary surroundings, there can be no argument to disprove. A close study of the subject for the past two years has led me to believe that polluted wells are a most prolific source of sickness and death throughout the state. I believe the medical profession is not yet so thoroughly aroused upon this subject as the facts demand, and that if the physicians of the state should carefully investigate the question of water pollution, the result would be one of wide-spread alarm at the ravages it is producing.