A letter to the Honourable the Lord Provost, magistrates, and councillors of Glasgow, on the public wells.

Date:
[1848?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Honourable the Lord Provost, magistrates, and councillors of Glasgow, on the public wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Sulphate of lime has never hitherto been condemned as pernicious to animal health or existence. I have shown it cannot be deleterious on account of the lime which is present in it, and we have no evidence to show that its other ingredi- ent, sulphuric acid, (in chemical combination,) is incompa- tible with a healthy state of the animal body. The well- waters near Paris contain 64 ^ grains per gallon of combined sulphuric acid ; those of Glasgow, taking Dr. T.’s numbers, 13 grains. Professor Graham gives 13-7 grains per gallon, in the deep well-waters of London; and the water of the Artesian wells, Trafalgar-square, London, analyzed at the Royal College of Chemistry, gave 11 '2 grains per gallon; and if occasion demand, it would be easy to draw up a copious table, showing that many of the waters used by mankind contain as much sulphuric acid (in combination) as the well- waters of Glasgow, and in very many instances more. If, then, the leading or most remarkable ingredients of these waters, (viz. sulphate of lime and nitric acid,) are not hurtful or noxious ; if the quantity of animal or organic matter present is a mere trifle, and not pernicious,—what can justify Dr. Thomson in branding them as a solution of human excretions ? or in putting them into the same cate- gory as the virulent small-pox matter on a lancet point ? The present case of difference of opinion is precisely ana- lagous, so far as it has gone, to what happened when the Gorbals Gravitation Water Company was in progress of for- mation. The discovery of a source whence an abundant sup- ply of pure and wholesome water, suitable for all purposes, could be obtained, was obviously of the first, and of vital im- portance. Among other streams, the Brock Burn, from which the supply is now taken, was examined, and samples of the water sent to two chemists for analysis and judgment. One chemist reported, as the result of his examination, that he had seldom met with such pure water near a large town; while the other affirmed, to the effect, that it was very bad, and quite unfit for domestic use; and added, there was no water near Glasgow so pure as that of the Clyde. The source of the