NATURE 



25 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12. i{ 



THE HYGIENE OF IVA TER-SUPPL V. 



An Elementary Hand-book on Potable Water. By Floyd 

 Davis, M.Sc , Ph.D. (Boston, U.S. : Silver, Burdett, 

 and Co., 1891.) 



THE aphorism that " history repeats itself" is being 

 very strikingly illustrated in the matter of hygiene 

 at the present day. Questions respecting water-supply 

 and the public health generally, which in this country 

 were absorbing much of scientific attention some fifteen 

 or twenty years ago, have only within the last decade 

 begun to be seriously dealt with even in the most civi- 

 lized of Continental countries and in the United States. 

 Indeed, although we are indebted for much of the recent 

 progress which has been made in what may be called 

 the theory of hygiene to our Continental neighbours, yet 

 in matters of actual practice we still hold, undisputedly, 

 the first place among nations. The practice of hygienic 

 principles cannot be introduced by Act of Parliament or 

 Imperial ukase ; it is the growth of years, or rather gene- 

 rations, and is quite independent of the establishment 

 of hygienic institutes and bacteriological laboratories. 

 In a few hours of Continental travel, it is possible to 

 visit University towns provided with hygienic labora- 

 tories, munificently equipped, in which food-stuflfs are 

 daily submitted to elaborate analysis, whilst water and 

 milk are searchingly interrogated as to the micro- 

 organisms which they contain ; and yet side by side with 

 these refinements we find sanitary conditions, even in the 

 houses of the well-to-do, which would hardly be found in 

 the alleys and purlieus of one of our manufacturing 

 centres. It is far from my wish or purpose to deprecate 

 the establishment of institutions for the prosecution of 

 hygienic inquiries on a scientific basis ; on the contrary, 

 such places are calculated to enormously accelerate the 

 achievement of sanitary improvements, and to economize 

 time, money, and human life, which are ruthlessly 

 wasted when these improvements are attained as the 

 result of empiricism and the operation of natural forces. 

 Our position of supremacy in practical sanitation is 

 mainly due to the long period of domestic repose and 

 prosperity which we have enjoyed, and which has led us 

 to turn our attention to the prevention of the unnecessary 

 sacrifice of human beings even in civil life ; but who can 

 doubt that this position would have been much more 

 rapidly gained if these endeavours had been always 

 guided by scientific knowledge and systematic experi- 

 mental inquiry ? Even as it is, the path to our present 

 position has been much shortened, and has been rendered 

 less costly both as regards life and money, by the time 

 and attention which have been bestowed upon sanitary 

 matters by men of high scientific attainments. It is 

 earnestly to be hoped that the recent Hygienic Congress 

 held in our midst will have convinced those who control 

 the purse of this country that a national effort must be 

 made to maintain our position in the scientific as well as 

 the practical progress of the century. We have not to 

 NO. 1 1 50, VOL. 45] 



deplore any shortcoming in the quality of the scien- 

 tific work which emanates from us ; in originality and as 

 pioneers in all departments of science we are second to 

 none ; but quantitatively we are lamentably deficient, 

 and in consequence, it is only too frequently the case 

 that we have to leave to others the cultivation of those 

 fields which we have ourselves had a large share in dis- 

 covering. This is most conspicuously the case in the 

 j matter of hygiene ; and after the highly discreditable 

 ! obstruction, with which the foundation of our National 

 I Institute of Preventive Medicine was recently harassed, 

 has now happily been swept away, we trust that public 

 ; if not Government support will be forthcoming in the 

 I immediate future, to render that Institution, with its 

 tremendous potentiality for benefiting mankind, second 

 in usefulness and dignity to none in the civilized world. 

 The State organization of science in the New World has 

 made great strides during recent years, and scientific 

 men in this country cannot fail to be impressed with the 

 immense volume of work — more especially in applied 

 science — which annually flows from the laboratories of 

 the United States. The appearance of the book before 

 us is, presumably, evidence of this great activity, showing 

 as it does that there is a considerable body of men 

 anxious to have presented to them in a concise and 

 handy form all the main facts which have been accumu- 

 lated — and which are dispersed in innumerable reports, 

 blue-books, journals, and other forms of literature — con- 

 cerning potable water. The difficulty of access to the 

 original sources of this information renders such a work 

 of great importance at the present time, but one which it 

 is extremely difficult to do justice to. The present volume, 

 we regret, does not come up to what we could wish for 

 in a work of the kind. The questions which have to be 

 discussed are in many cases necessarily more or less 

 matters of opinion, in which conflicting evidence ought 

 to be balanced and submitted to careful and critical 

 analysis ; unfortunately, however, for the exercise of this 

 judicial power the author exhibits but little aptitude or 

 inclination. The pages are sometimes filled with autho- 

 ritative statements made by their respective authors on 

 insufficient data, which statements have been copied, 

 often not even from the original sources, without a word 

 of elucidation or criticism. Such material, placed in the 

 hands of the unwary reader, may lead to very serious 

 consequences. Of this character is the statement that 

 " the power of certain samples of water to dissolve lead 

 is directly proportional to the number of micro-organisms 

 that the samples respectively contain," which might well 

 have been omitted from this work ; and its introduction 

 as almost the only piece of information concerning the 

 action of water on lead is singularly inappropriate. 

 Again, on another page, we are categorically informed 

 that " even milk is sometimes the agent of this disease 

 (typhoid fever), in which case the typhoid poison re- 

 mains undestroyed in passing from the polluted water 

 from which the cows drink, to the milk-secreting glands " ; 

 whilst no mention is made of the real mode of trans- 

 mission by the watering of milk and the rinsing of 

 cans with contaminated water. In most cases the 

 principles laid down are sound and reasonable ; but 

 the author has permitted himself to be carried some- 



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