Report to the Local Government Board / by R. Angus Smith.

  • Smith, Robert Angus, 1817-1884.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the Local Government Board / by R. Angus Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/136 (page 26)
    death to more than one of a family in Manchester before the present water supply was universal in the city. Inferences. We may then come to the following conclusions :—Bodies containing protein compounds, when in abundance of water and in common air, may oxidise and form nitric acid. _ The same organic bodies in a state of decomposition^ and in water may oxidise at the expense of nitrates, and give out nitrogen. . „ The first condition is that m which a certain amount ot Gewacre is in the water, but is overpowered by the amount of air. Th^e second is when the sewage is in excess, and overpowers the nitrates. , Nitrates may be formed by the oxidation of inorganic mtrogen, but not so far as we know by contact with common air under ordinary conditions. The oxygen must be presented m a more <;oncentrated or more active condition. ^ • n f Putrefaction destroys organic matter without the miiuenpe ot oxyo-en • it breaks up organic compounds, and destroys organisms. The'evidence seems to indicate that it destroys even those bodies that produce disease, but that in certain conditions it produces others^^ This is a point not to be enlarged upon without more knowledge, but it is evident that by putrefaction we get rid oi an enon^ous amount of oflensive matter. Oxygen cannot enter tinder the surfaces of actively putrefying bodies; but whenever it is allowed to enter by the putrefaction being less active, an action begins which in time . completes the destruction of the body We are not, therefore, to suppose that the germs ot disease can resist all these efforts of nature to destroy noxious things, nor are we to suppose that an invisible g-erm of disease can pass on from stage to stage unaffected by the putre- faction of sewage and the action of am We must beheve for the present, that it is not so. In water we see perfect purification, nitrogen itself being lost. In ordinary putrefaction sulphuretted hydrogen comes off m abundance, with much carbonic acid and some nitrogen. Oxygen resists this action, and if the oxygen is supplied m a concentrated condition a change takes place, nitrogen is evolved as the prin- cipal gas, and a decomposition of nitrogen compounds takes place Nitrogenous bodies are thus destroyed, in one manner by their voluntary putrefaction, in another by oxidation Up to a certain point not determined the greater the amount of nitro- genous bodies the more rapid is their decomposition. The oxygen of the nitrate passes m part to the carbon; some will be retained, forming a carbonate. I have not estimated how much, or if all, is taken by the carbon. If the solution is weak the nitrogen takes up the oxygen, and does not allow it to pass away, thus forming nitrates.