“We are often asked, In what way does the water of our wells, in farming communities especially, and in our larger villages, become impure? It comes bubbling up from the deep fountains, fresh, cold, pure, and clear as the crystal, and often gives no indication by taste or smell of containing impurities. How often do we see the waste water from our kitchens thrown out upon the ground year after year, until the soil is saturated thereby? Then, again, the continuity of sink-drains, cess-pools, and privy vaults to our wells is sufficient to saturate the earth with their poisonous, disease-producing elements. It is through the agency of this apparently _pure water_, constantly, insidiously introducing these subtle elements into the human organism, that the fountains of life are poisoned and disease generated. In large towns and thickly populated streets, with slovenly domestics, the whole surface becomes saturated with the waste water, and in wet seasons the well, being the only artificial drainage, receives the drippings, converting it into a cess-pool of filth. I have known instances where the waste water from the sink-drain ran directly into the well, until the horrible stench compelled an investigation and a remedy. Instances of this kind are by no means rare, where a direct communication from the sink to the well is found to exist. With some families in the country the whole waste water of the household is thrown out upon the ground, until the entire surface soil is saturated like a sponge with the elements of disease. The popular but erroneous idea, that filling in earth upon a water-saturated soil removes the necessity of deep drainage, should be exploded from the minds of the people, and the great central fact set forth, that no water-saturated soil is fit for human habitation, and that a large proportion of unhealthfulness and human ailments can be traced directly or indirectly to this influence.”