Show DEATH IN TH WELL Pure Subject Obtaining of WHT the Subject o l Important One Water Is An says the An ounce of prevention old adage is worth a pound of cure The sanitary condition of Salt Lake City that the is such at the present time ounce of prevention needs to be applied with plied at once if we are to dispense the pound of cure The causes which pund will lead to may and which probably wi zymotic diseases in another outbreak of zymotc this city are rife and rank in our midst cty dis Filth and filth and impure water Fih ease go hand in hand while impure water is too often the source of contagion furnished the Provo Enquirer From an article funisbecl quirer by Dr W R Pike Quarantine of Phvsician of that town some portions which are strongly applicable and pertinent the tinent to Salt Lake City we extract following The greater portion of our population derive their supply of water for drinking and domestic purposes from wells averaging five to fifteen feet or ing in depth from ffeen This water is and from surface springs fus and must of necessity be surface water surace loaded with in nearly every instance wIh organic ever Anyone who will devote a moments thought or consideration to this subject will readily see how this cannot can-not be otherwise Take the average home of one of our citizens and we find twelve rods located upon a plot of ground dwelling house a barn or square n dwelnghouse 1arn stable a corral for stock n pigpen cliickencoop privyvault and perhaps a cesspool and in close proximity to most of these is situated the well from which the family derive their supply of water famiy for all domestic purposes Upon the sur al face of the lot is deposited the excrement from all of its inhabitants both animal and human it Take all of the above into consideration along with our system of irrigating the land and WHAT MOST BE TIE RESULT Water an almost universal solvent of vegetable and animal matter is once or twice a week turned upon the surface of the lot and floods it liquefying dissolving dissolv-ing and dividing into minute particles a great proportion of this matter and carrying car-rying it along into the earth sinking until it strikes a hard strata of earth or clay such as underlie most of our surface wells its further progress downwards is resisted it then follows along the surface of this liard strata in the direction of the least resistance usually until it reaches the well raising the water in the same perhaps several feet Our surface springs are most of them created in this manner The water contained in these wells and springs is simply a solution not only of the matter spoken of above but also of any decaying vegetable or animal matter the surface of that may be deposited upon snrace the ground True TIE EARTH ACTS AS A FILTER And retains a portion of this injurious material and in time the earth may become be-come so saturated that the simple turning ing of it over with the plow will give rise to sickness in those who live near but a great portion must find its way into surface sur-face wells and springs and thoroughly contaminate them What must be the effect upon the health of the consumers of such contaminated contami-nated and polluted water I have long been satisfied from my own observation and from the observation of others that a large proportion of certain forms of disease are largely due to its use Especially Es-pecially is this so IN THE CASE OF CHILDREN Who are our greatest users of water as a beverage older persons more generally using it after boiling as during the preparation pre-paration of tea coffee etc boiling deprives de-prives it of some of its powers to do harm Among the diseases most likely to be conveyed or propagated by the use of impure water are typhoid malarial and certain forms of low and continued fever also diptheritic dysentery and diarrhoea troubles This is a fact that needs no comment from me as it has been amply demonstrated time and again in hundreds of cases In verification of this it has many times been proven that in cities where water works have been established and a good supply of pure water introduced intro-duced into the dwellings of the people other things being equal the class of diseases spoken of above has always largely decreased I was not my intention to enter into details but simply to generalize with a hope that it may be the means of causing caus-ing some of our citizens to investigate the source of their water supplies as to their purity and when doing so they should remember that all is not gold that glitters ters neither is all water fit for human consumption simply because it looks clear as crystal is pleasant to the palate and contains no impurities that are vis tS I ible to the eye Such water may contain the GERMS OF THE DEADLIEST DISEASE And yet perhaps only capable of being detected by the aid of the microscope or some careful chemical analysis How should we obtain a supply of pure water There are several methods and I will trespass upon your space sufficient to make mention of some of them although al-though it was not my intent when I commenced com-menced to write this to attempt to point out how to obtain such supply but rather to show the necessity of doing so and also to point out some of the evils arising from the use of impure water One methodthe boring of artesian wells is open t the same objection too great cost and at the same time a certain amount of uncertainty as to reaching a supply but when this can be done it is avery I very satisfactory method and has been successfully accomplished in many places especially in Denver Colorado and also some portions of California Another more simple and less expensive ex-pensive mode of obtaining pure water has been adopted in many places the sinking b of the SOCALLED DRIVE WELLS This method I recently had an opportunity oppor-tunity to examine in Salt Lake City in apart a-part of the city that lies outside of the present water supply The people in this neighborhood have been situated for drinking water about the same as a large portion of Provo is now drinking water from surface wells varying in depth from six to sixteen feet I saw in operation several wells that opration wels had been driven from sixty to one hun dred feet giving a constant ilow of good water coming up with force enough to throw the water from a few inches above above the pipe in some cases to a height of twentyfive feet in others The depth to which they are sunk precludes the possi bility of contamination by surface water Of course the depth to be driven to ob tain these wells will vary with the locality but I think the feasability of such wells could be easily demonstrated i |