646 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



as inoculation with putrid blood and other putrid matter. 

 Since the effect, however, is always dependent on the amount 

 of matter introduced, which is never the case with contagion, 

 putrid infection can not be classed with contagious diseases. 

 From these and numerous other careful experiments involv- 

 ing the use of sulj^hureted hydrogen, sulphide of ammoni- 

 um, etc., the author concludes that this infection is not due 

 to living bacteria, vibriones, or other microscopic objects in 

 the putrid matter, even though they may take j^art in the 

 formation of the virus. 28 (7, Ajwil, 1873, 250. 



DETERMINATION OF OEGANIC IMPUEITIES IN WATER. 



Water, even though free from color and an appreciable 

 odor and taste, and at the same time furnishing a proper 

 lather with a small proportion of soap, may yet have sewage 

 impurities sufficient to render its use extremely dangerous. 

 The Pharinaceutical Journal quotes from Heisch a very sim- 

 ple and important test for determining the quality of drink- 

 ing water, and especially as to its freedom from sewage con- 

 tamination. This consists in placing a few grains of the best 

 w^hite lump-sugar in half a pint of the water in a perfectly 

 clean, colorless, glass-stoppered bottle, freely exposed to day- 

 light in the window of a warm room. If tlie water be per- 

 fectly free from sewage contamination, it should not become 

 turbid, even after an exposure of a w^eek or ten days, in which 

 case it is almost certainly safe, otherwise not. Jour. Soc. 

 Arts, June 27, 1873, 633. 



, DRINKING AVATER. 



According to Dr. Gautier, a suitable drinking water should 

 be destitute of any particular taste, and must be positively re- 

 jected should it contain any odor whatever. Its temperature 

 should be comprised between 42 and 60 Fahr. As the wa- 

 ter introduces not only oxygen and hydrogen into the sys- 

 tem in the proportions necessary to form water, but also such 

 mineral substances, in solution, as are indispensable to life, it 

 will be readily understood that absolutely pure water is not 

 suited for the sustenance of life. There must, however, be a 

 limit to the quantity of such foreign ingredients, under the 

 penalty of injury to health. Of these ingredients, carbonate 

 of lime is the most common, and of this there may be, without 



