HOMEOPATHIC MEDICAL DISPENSARY, BOSTON.

REPORT OF PATIENTS TREATED DURING THE YEAR 1881.

† Open four times a week.

H. C. CLAPP, M. D., Supt.

*Open twice a week. All other departments are open every day except Sunday.

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BOSTON HOMEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY.

THE annual meeting of this society was held at the College Building, East Concord Street, on Thursday evening, Jan. 12, 1882. Something over thirty members were on hand, and, though fewer invited guests presented themselves than at the annual meeting of the previous year, the evening passed most pleasantly. In the absence of Dr. Hemenway, the vice-president, Dr. Krebs, presided.

The election of officers for the ensuing year resulted as follows: Secretary, Fred. B. Percy, M. D.; treasurer, J. E. Kinney, M. D.; censors, C. H. Farnsworth, M. D., Conrad Wesselhoeft, M. D., M. L. Cummings, M. D.

Dr. Talbot made an appeal in behalf of the Providence Fair, which is held to raise funds for the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Hospital. He referred to the generous support accorded by the people of Providence at the time of our own fair, and said that now

we had an opportunity to show our appreciation of their efforts. A Boston table was assured, and, being in the hands of the Ladies' Aid Society, it could not fail of success. A cordial invitation was given to all to join in an excursion to Providence on Tuesday, Jan. 17, when the fair would be formally opened.

The report of the censors being favorable, the following were elected to membership: James Utley, M. D., W. O. Ruggles, M. D.

Charles Leeds, M. D., was proposed for membership.

The report of the committee appointed to investigate the sources of our water supply was read by Dr. Sutherland, as Dr. Wesselhoeft, the chairman of the committee, was absent.

Dr. Talbot spoke at some length upon the impurities of Pegan Brook, and exhibited specimens of water taken from different parts of it. He also showed specimens of the Spongilla fluviatilis. Dr. Talbot had never been able to get from it the fishy odor or cucumber taste, no matter how it was treated. Dead fishes and clams found on the shores, he thought, contributed to the bad taste. The importance of an organized system of sewerage for Boston and places within a radius of twenty miles was forcibly presented.

Dr. Woodvine also made a few remarks.

A committee of three was appointed to revise the fee table and report at the next meeting.

Drs. Jackson, Woodvine, and Hastings were the ones selected. The society then adjourned to the supper-room, where a bountiful repast was spread, and an hour or more was profitably spent in discussing viands of many kinds.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE

TO INSPECT COCHITUATE

WATER BASINS ABOUT SOUTH FRAMINGHAM.

[Read before the meeting of the Boston Homeopathic Society, Jan. 12.]

In this report your committee has not alluded especially to the peculiar taste and odor of the Cochituate water, as noticed previous to the time when the improvements were undertaken. We have every reason to believe that the "cucumber odor" of the water was due to the presence of the sponge found by Prof. Ira Remsen, and described by him in his report copied in the daily papers, especially as that particular taste and odor have mostly subsided since the water no longer flows through Farm Pond, where that sponge mostly abounded. The inspection of the water supply was not undertaken by your committee for the purpose of investigating the growth or presence of the sponge, but

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*Boston Daily Advertiser, Nov. 22.

rather in order to determine the general condition of the water; to discover whether it contains any other sources of impurities, besides the special one named by Prof. Remsen. The following observations will clearly show that, besides the odor and taste imparted to the water by the sponge, now in process of destruction, it contains many other impurities; and, furthermore, that the sources of the latter are due to certain defects in the formation, depth, and condition of the basins, and of the soil forming their bottoms, upon which the water is collected from the Sudbury River, Stony Brook, and certain tributaries of Cochituate Lake itself.

All of these have been mentioned and condemned by Prof. Remsen, whose valuable labors your committee would by no means underrate, but rather accord to them the merit of having forcibly described most of the defects of our water supply. But among these defects are certain others, to which your attention is invited in the following description :

On Monday, Dec. 12, your committee, Dr. C. Wesselhoeft, chairman, Dr. I. T. Talbot, and Dr. D. G. Woodvine, having been elected to inquire into the condition of the water supply of Boston, took the early train for South Framingham, at which point they began their inspection of the sources, ponds, and basins from which the drinking water of Boston is derived. Although it was late in the season, and much of the surfaces of ponds, etc., covered with ice, your committee had sufficient opportunity for making certain observations concerning the nature of the sources and basins from which the drinking water comes to the city, as well as concerning the water itself, which observations are herewith offered to this society.

Proceeding from South Framingham along the railroad about a quarter of a mile, the southern end of Farm Pond is easily. reached. This pond is the last of a series of natural basins, through which the water flows before entering the large conduit which leads it to other artificial reservoirs (Chestnut Hill, etc.). Cochituate Lake is situated nearer Boston, and will be spoken of separately.

Beginning, then, with Farm Pond, we found this to be a shallow pond of several acres, with very shallow banks, from which the water had been drawn away for the purpose of cleaning the bottom, upon which grew manifold water weeds, besides the sponge (Spongilla fluviatilis), spoken of in the reports contained in the newspapers. Much of this sponge had been removed, together with the mud and aquatic plants, laying bare a gravelly bottom so far as the water was drained away. But various large clusters or bunches of the now ripe and dried sponge were still scattered along the banks of Farm Pond, and specimens pre

served. Of these plants and their effect on the water, very little was to be observed at this season of the year and stage of the work at the time being carried on around this pond. As stated in other reports, the water is not taken from this pond, but is conducted around it through a newly constructed canal.

The water in this canal is of a dark-brown color, bearing with it dead leaves and coloring matter; although it has no decidedly bad taste or odor, it tastes of decomposed vegetable matter, and has a faint odor of the same, evidently requiring much purification before being used for drinking purposes.

When we take into consideration the impure state of the water in which it enters Farm Pond, we at once are forced to the conclusion that, as long as it was conducted through the latter, it must have become still more impure and charged with decomposed vegetable and animal substances.

It is a matter of minor consequence of what the aquatic vegetation in the pond consists, whether sponges or other organisms, while the conditions for their growth are so very favorable. These conditions consist in the shallowness of the pond. It seems plain on inspection that, from fifty to one hundred feet around the pond, the depth of water could at no time exceed one to five feet at the most. There are undoubtedly deeper places in the middle, but these do not prevent the abundant vegetation on the bottom and along the shallower places, where, even when the pond is full, the sunlight has ample access to the bottom; and, as it is light on which vegetation depends, this grows there most profusely, as grasses and shrubs do on dry land Now every year these plants, growing mostly from perennial roots, die, decay, and decompose, only to be followed by a new crop each year, precisely as land plants do. The latter, in decomposing, furnish nutriment for the following crop; while decomposed water plants of Farm Pond are carried off by the current of water to be used in the city.

We were told by persons engaged in work around the pond that it abounds in fishes (perch, hornpouts, pickerel, and eels, likewise frogs and turtles). There is a theory that fishes purify the water in which they live, a theory easily controverted by any aquarium, which easily becomes soiled and turbid, not only by the excrements of fishes, but also by the excessive increase of microscopic organisms growing therein.

Such is Farm Pond. Having examined this in its present unused condition, we proceeded in the direction of the conduit connecting Farm Pond with the large new basins. These receive the waters of Sudbury River and Stony Brook, which, being dammed up at longer intervals, form a series of basins or large ponds extending for several miles.

Although these sheets of water have added much to the beauty of the landscape, they produce another impression when viewed as reservoirs of drinking water, and as having the same disadvantages as Farm Pond.

In the first place, as is well known, the bottoms of these basins are meadow land, covered at the time of their inundation by loam, upon which grew a rich crop of meadow grass and shrubs. The water of Sudbury River and of Stony Brook, traversing just such country, and already saturated with vegetable matter, after reaching these basins is necessarily still more enriched by soluble matter of immense areas of meadow loam and decomposing herbage. This is easily ascertained from the color and taste of the water in these basins.

Another great disadvantage arising from the present condition of these basins, like that of Farm Pond, is the shallowness of their shores, great tracts of which exhibit a boggy or marshy appearance. Reeds and water-grasses may be seen to grow in many places, extending for several rods from the margin towards the middle, marked by the tops of grasses protruding above the surface of the water. In other places, black hummocks and stumps rising above the water give evidence of the insufficient depth of water in these basins, even after copious rains.

It is particularly this shallowness to which we desire to draw your attention. The light penetrates easily through the water and encourages rich crops of aquatic plants in place of the meadow grasses. It is from several of these water plants that the taste and odor of the water is derived; and when the sponges spoken of in other reports shall have spread over the other basins, the condition of the drinking water will be worse than it is now.

The present color and odor of the water is, however, not owing entirely to the dissolved crops of deciduous larger water-plants, but also to vast growths of microscopic organisms of vegetable and animal nature, for whose development and reproduction the water of these basins, already impregnated with organic material, forms a rich nutriment.

(Want of time has prevented careful and detailed study of the microscopic organisms, but will be completed at no distant day.) The situation and extent of Cochituate Lake near Natick is too well known to need description. It is a long, narrow, irregular sheet of water, reaching several miles north from the town of Natick, and is known to be clear and pure, mostly of sandy and gravelly bottom; but it is said to have become impure lately from vegetable growths and vegetable sediment. Your committee were unable on this day to inspect this lake carefully, but gave their attention to Pegan Brook, lately so much spoken of.

Your committee inspected this brook, beginning near the rail