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 “mountainsprings” with their “silver cascades.” Painters havesketched
in many a sequestered nook, where the beauty of the scenegave to the soul its grandest appreciation of nature’s handiwork;but the poet’s song and the painter’s canvas are too oftenthe false airs and the tinsel drapery of Momus—fun and folly.But poets and painters live in a realm uncongenial to the startlingfacts of modern chemistry. Virgil would undoubtedly havebeen as ready to have believed that H₂O represented a glass ofmilk, as that it was the equivalent of pure water; while, ifRaphael had been told that the pool of Bethesda was abundantwith “albuminoid ammonia,” he might innocently have believedit to be “something good to eat.”
Tradition and popular education have taken wings in a tangentdirection from many of the fundamental principles of anatural existence, and, while freighting the popular mind withits bulky chaff, sparsely grained, they seldom recognize the revelationsof science. The plot of some well drawn novel, or thefascinating performances of its hero, rest unforgotten in theembrace of memory,—are sought after, cherished, and rememberedin all and by all ages. Science as yet is but little courted,much less wedded to the popular taste, and the stubbornnessof facts is in direct ratio to the inflexibility of the public mind.[4]Science, however, is not always of one hue. It is full of attractionsand alluring fascinations. It needs only to be clothed inwell cut and fashionable garments, and properly and politelyintroduced, 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 everycommunity and every family than all others, and, through thesimplicity of its primary principles, can be realized and understoodby all.
Pure water is essential to the health and comfort of everycommunity: there is no argument to the contrary. How sucha desideratum can be acquired and maintained is a problemwhich requires the closest application of science, as well asmechanical and engineering skill. The question, whenever andwherever applied, becomes an isolated reality, and the solution,instead of being based upon established formulas or analogy, isalmost wholly dependent upon the individual facts and conditionsconnected therewith.
The aspect of the question a century hence will be very differentfrom what it is to-day, even as in its present bearings itdiffers from the time when the woodman’s axe was the onlysound of industry that echoed through the sleeping valleys andover the watchful hills of New Hampshire. In that day thehardy pioneer quenched his thirst by the side of any stream orspring with water as pure as earth could give. He thought notto glance up the stream to s