1st. We say unhesitatingly, if a well shows signs of contamination by sewerage or other like matter, fill it up!
2d. Build all sinks and privies as far as possible from the well.
Through permeable soils and strata, dangerous liquids may ooze to a distance of many feet. We know of cases where wells had been used for years with no bad effect, when suddenly disease and death appeared. The poison, though slow in its course, had finally reached the well and a chemical analysis revealed contamination from privies thirty feet or more distant.
The living organisms which are found in water are, some of them injurious; some beneficial.
Under favorable conditions of light, warmth, &c., countless millions of living things will spring into life in any water; the more impure, the more abundant they will be. If the water is alkaline they will be animalculæ or infusoria: if acid, fungi, algæ, &c.
They are never found in fresh rain water, but abundant in nearly every cistern. The office of infusoria is in water, that of the buzzard on land: they are scavengers, and purify the liquid by feeding upon the decaying matters it contains. But the microscope reveals to us in water, contaminated with sewerage, for instance, minute germs capable of motion, which, as in the case of the infusoria, live on the organic matter, but are believed to accompany if not to cause many forms of contagious disease, filling even the air, in times of epidemic.
To detect many of these impurities and dangers, chemical analysis and the microscope are sometimes indispensable, but the following rules may awaken suspicion and lead to a scientific investigation of the quality of drinking water in some cases.
A good drinking water is perfectly colorless and transparent, without smell or noticeable taste and agreeable to the palate. It should not lose its clearness in boiling and should leave a very small residue on evaporation.
Where impurities are suspected, an analysis should be obtained if possible, if not, filtering through charcoal or sand, or boiling will often either remove or render harmless various dangerous ingredients.
Our State Board of Health have done the people of Wilmington and of the whole State a great service in directing attention to this subject. May they go on and prove a mighty blessing to the Old North State. Let us give them the aid and encouragement they deserve.