Outside the fort nothing was to be seen but burnt-down houses and putrid bodies.
Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever?
Of late years enormous impulse has been given to our knowledge of the causation of disease by microbes, through the works of Gaspard, who injected putrid matter into the veins of a living animal; by Villemin, who discovered that tuberculosis is infective; by Davaine; and especially by Pasteur, Koch and others too numerous to mention, who have worked, and are still working, at the microbic causation of disease with marvellous success.
Nevertheless, instances were adduced where the most careful heating of yolk of egg, milk, hay-infusions, &c., had failed, - the boiled infusions, &c., turning putrid and swarming with bacteria after a few hours.
Under these acts a sanitary authority is authorized to take proceedings to restrain interference with the due flow of a stream or the pollution of its waters by throwing into it the solid refuse of any manufactory or quarry, or any rubbish or cinders, or any other waste or any putrid solid matter.