6 PREFACE. 



As stated in the text of the bulletin — 



The treatment of water supplies for the destruction of pathogenic bacteria, or any 

 application of the co^^per sulphate method, which has to do with the public health 

 is not conteni])lated or indeed possible by this Department. The requests of pri- 

 vate individual!^ or of unauthorized bodies for information or assistance can not be 

 granted. "When State or local boards of health consider that the disinfection of a 

 water supply is desirable and wish information upon the subject, it will be supplied 

 as fully and freely as j^ossible. All experiments of this kind, however, must be 

 conducted by boards of health, and the Department can serve only in the capacity 

 , of an adviser. 



We are under obligation to Dr. H. P. Wolcott and Mr. X. H. Good- 

 nough, of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, for facilities in 

 securing material and a temporary laborator}- in the Boston State 

 House; to the United States Bureau of Fisheries for fish used in 

 experiments; to Dr. J. J. Kinyoun for typhoid cultures; to Dr. M.J. 

 Rosenau for Asiatic cholera cultures, and to the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry for cultures of typhoid and facilities for carrying on pre- 

 liminary experiments. 



Albert F. Woods, 



Pathologist and PhyHiologht. 

 Office of Vegetable Pathological 



AND Physiological Investigations, 



Waddngton, D. C, Ajjril 30, 190 J^. 



