Chloride of lime in sanitation / by Albert H. Hooker.

  • Albert H. Hooker
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Chloride of lime in sanitation / by Albert H. Hooker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    “Fortunately there is now available by the hypochlorite method a reliable means of sterilizing or disinfecting sewage or water at a small cost. The full significance of this is not yet fully appreciated. It has much bearing on the question of sew- age disposal in general.’^ Here, then, is a method by which it is possible to deliver to the diluting river, lake or sea, a sterile sewage freed of pathogenic germs and of germs of putrefaction. All traces of the sterilizing agent vanish at the point of dilu- tion. Furthermore, the studies by the Board of Surveys of the City of Philadelphia in 1910^^^ show that the chloride of lime became exhausted within J to 1 hour, where 175 lbs. had been added per million gallons sewage; 2 to 3 hours, where 250 lbs. had been used. The assimilation of the vast quantities of organic sewage matters, rendered non-pathogenic, is proceeding gradually; in part, through the river bacteria, and largely by the vegetable and animal plankton. And this transformation into healthy food for fish, is accomplished without putrefaction or the form- ation of gases and other decomposition products, esthetically offensive, and so poisonous to fish life. Destruction of the pathogenic germs in sewage, or steriliza- tion of sewage by chloride of lime, has received attention from scientists and sanitarians for more than thirty years, but it was made a practical and economical process by Prof. Earle B. Phelps, through his memorable investigations^^^ in Boston in 1906, followed by a first installation at Red Bank, N. J. Phelps places sewage-sterilization on such a definite and reliable basis that a number of large and smaller communities are now being benefited by the results of his labors. Financial aid had been received from the U. S. Geological Survey, from state and city governments; also the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had been interested in the furtherance of his important work. Nor had this been accomplished too soon by any means. The original idea to guard against danger in time of epidemics, and to protect the water supplies of communities lower down by sterilizing sewage before turning it into water courses, had been
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