Bache.] ^ [April 17. 



Possible Sterilization of City Water. 



By R. Meade Bache. 



{Read before the American Philosophical Society, April 17, 1S91.) 



It is an open question whether the characteristic acidit} r of 

 the digestive fluids is or is not efficacious in destroying patho- 

 genic germs entering the stomach. But it ought to be evident 

 on both sides that neither extreme can represent the truth, even 

 if the digestive fluids possess that general property. It is cer- 

 tainly, on one side, too much to assume that, not even in a per- 

 fectly healthy stomach, are those fluids sometimes capable of elim- 

 inating such germs from the sj^stem, and, on the other, that they are 

 alwaj r s, in sickness or in health, capable of performing that task. 

 So little vitalized are micro-organisms in their resting-stages, that 

 it is easily conceivable that, when masked by food and water, and 

 when the human system is in a weak condition, many escape the 

 possibly destructive action of the healthiest digestive secretions. 



It would, additionally, be an unwarrantable assumption, even 

 if the healthy stomach were proved to be able always to neutral- 

 ize the morbific action of pathogenic germs, that they find their 

 inevitable path and exit, with or without vitality impaired or 

 destroyed, dead or alive, through the alimentary canal ; for in 

 point of fact we know that one kind, at least partially, takes its 

 disastrous course directly into the lungs. When the infinitesimal 

 size of micro-organisms is considered, and when also is consid- 

 ered how varied is the character of the parts with which they 

 must come into contact upon passing the oesophagus, it will 

 readily be perceived that, even if they escape the sometimes 

 assumed destructiveness of the digestive fluids, they must often 

 be absorbed into the blood by other tissues as well as b} r those 

 of the lungs. 



If so believing, we should perceive at the same time that it is 

 hopeless to contend, except by palliative sanitary measures, 

 against the invasion of pathogenic germs through inhalation ; 

 but that, on the other hand, especially as our food cannot be 

 sterilized wholesale, we should deeply consider the possibility of 

 contending with them by means of the wholesale sterilization of 

 water, which enters alone, or as the largest constituent, into our 



