=Drinking Water.=--So large an amount of sickness has been directly traced to an impure water supply that too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the need of proper precaution. Not only should the ground about the top of the well be banked to throw off surface water, but the upper wall of the well, for a distance of five or six feet from the surface of the ground, should be laid in cement, and the space between the wall and the ground filled in with wet clay well puddled around the curbing. If a gravel seam or loose porous rock lies between the well and the cess-pool, even when these are a considerable distance apart, there is absolute danger, unless the receptacle for the waste products of the household be made thoroughly water-tight. Without this precaution, the well may be safe for a few months or even a year or more, but sooner or later the foul fecal matter will reach the source of water supply, carrying with it disease and death. No odor or taste may mark the inflow of polluted matter. Some of the most dangerous well-waters are sparkling in appearance and refreshing to the taste. =Sewage.=--Few subjects relating to health are of greater importance than the proper disposal of the refuse and waste matter of the household. Even if free from the specific germs of disease, the organic matters contained in sewage give rise to noxious emanations, which, when inhaled, lower the tone of the system and render it an easy prey to disease. =Dangers of the Soil Pipe.=--It is chiefly through the soil pipe that cess-pool and sewer gas finds its way into the house. The return of these foul emanations is often caused by the force of their own expansion and sometimes by the pressure of the sewer air behind them. The water-traps afford but a slight barrier to their progress. Every drain pipe leading to cess-pool or sewer should be connected with a ventilating shaft which will carry the foul vapors above the roof of the house, and as far away from the windows as possible. The Medical Officer for Edinburgh, in a recent report, declared that wherever water-closets had been introduced, in the course of one year there were double the number of deaths from typhoid and scarlet-fever, and that any epidemic fever occurring in these houses assumed a character of malignant mortality. =Disinfectants.=--Chemical disinfectants are used by many good housewives, and are helpful, but they cannot be wholly relied upon. Cleanliness, ventilation, and dryness are the natural disinfectants. Artificial disinfectants can no more be substituted for them than perfumes can be made to take the place of soap and water.