24 GEORGE W. FULLER 



merit in practice. In this article it is the endeavor to outline the 

 development of this aspect of experimental methods. 



EXPERIMENTAL METHODS IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



The experimental methods which have been put in practice in 

 America so much in recent years may be denned as the bringing- 

 together of reliable preliminary data from the engineering, chemical, 

 bacterial, and hygienic standpoints, in order that efficient sanitary 

 works may be built for a wide range of local conditions within the 

 limits of reasonable cost ; and if data are inadequate for fair assump- 

 tions, then the procuring of the needed data by practical tests on a 

 small scale. 



It is the Massachusetts State Board of Health to which credit 

 is principally due for developing this method to serve as a guide 

 for such works. In 1886, when the present board was organized, 

 one of its first steps was to establish the Lawrence Experiment 

 Station, whereby data were to be secured to show the best means 

 available under various local conditions for purifying water and 

 sewage. The legislature enacted that this board should serve as 

 a sanitary tribunal, before which the local authorities should place 

 their projects for water- and sewage-works, and whose approval 

 was requisite before the state authorities granted the local author- 

 ities permission to issue bonds for their construction. This experi- 

 ment station has been in continuous service since the autumn of 

 1887, and has attained a high reputation among various workers 

 in the field of sanitary science throughout the world, in addition 

 to fulfilling its main purpose of aiding the citizens of Massachusetts 

 in economically improving their public works, whereby to a material 

 degree the health and comfort of the people of the state have been 

 enhanced. These results are so well known that it is needless 

 here to go into detail. 



The classical investigations at Lawrence, as set forth in the annual 

 reports for the past 15 years, have undoubtedly done more than 

 any other series of investigations in the world to place the science 

 of purifying water and sewage on a sound practical basis. It is 

 true that earlier workers abroad had previously taken important steps 

 along some of these lines, and that sand filtration of water had for 



