The record of pharmacy and therapeutics. No. IV. August, 1858 / edited by Hy. Medlock.

  • General Apothecaries Company (London, England)
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The record of pharmacy and therapeutics. No. IV. August, 1858 / edited by Hy. Medlock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ORIGINAL ARTICLES. On the Impurities of Water. At a season when sanatory measures are engaging so prominent a share of professional and public attention, it is hoped that the following remarks on the impurities of water may not be considered unsuited to the pages of the Record of Pharmacy and Therapeutics. The water supplied by public companies to the principal cities and towns of England is derived from rivers, which are the natural drains of the country. They receive in their course the sewage of towns and the surface drainage of manured lands, and derive, moreover, vast quantities of decaying animal and vegetable matter from the numberless aquatic plants and animals which abound in them. Organic matter in a state of decay, whether of animal or vegetable origin, is inimical to health, and water containing such is more or less injurious. The decomposition of organic matter is well known to be greatly hastened when it becomes mixed with a large volume of water, and hence it arises that sewage when poured into a river undergoes rapid decomposition and evolves large quantities of offensive gases and vapours. It is difficult, indeed impossible, to adduce a correct formula for organic matter ; we may, however, represent the two classes thereof—nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous —by the general formulae n (CHONSP) and n (CHO).- The recognised products of decomposition are carbonic acid, carburetted hydrogen, sulphuretted hydrogen, phosphuretted hydrogen, ammonia and water ; but other constituents of unknown composition are doubtlessly evolved simul- taneously, for it is notorious that the odours arising from putrescent organic matter are infinitely more offensive to the gense of smell and more injurious to health than either of the known gases and vapours above-mentioned; and from the fact that the emanations from stagnant water, or water containing organic matter, are, if not the primary cause, at least important aids to the induction of zymotic diseases, we are irresistibly led to conclude that from decaying organic