Makch 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



365 



is completed, and which may yield conclu- 

 sions quite as capable of verification as are 

 those of experiments made in the labora- 

 tory. This should be a matter of no small 

 encouragement, especially for younger 

 workers who, wherever they are, and what- 

 ever they may be doing, may safely rest 

 assured that if they will bring to bear 

 upon the experiments which nature is 

 making all about them the same careful 

 observation, generalization and verification 

 which they would apply to laboratory ex- 

 periments, they are no less likely to reach 

 results of the highest consequence, as well 

 as to win the cordial appreciation of all 

 competent scientists. 



Many communities, moreover, are nowa- 

 days embarking upon new phases of water 

 supply, sewerage, and sewage-disposal 

 which, rightly considered, constitute veri- 

 table experiments in sanitary science and 

 sanitary administration. And one of the 

 most encouraging signs of the sanitary 

 times is the custom, now universally ap- 

 proved and already widely adopted, of in- 

 stituting elaborate and often extensive ex- 

 periments, before embarking upon costly 

 and far-reaching improvements, the out- 

 come of which would otherwise be doubtful 

 or uncertain. The establishment by the 

 State Board of Health of Massachusetts in 

 1886 of a sanitary research laboratory and 

 water and sewage experiment station, on 

 the shore of the Merrimac River, in Law- 

 rence, marked the beginning of a new and 

 important era in practical sanitation, be- 

 cause it was the introduction of the experi- 

 mental method into a field of human ac- 

 tivity in which hitherto the results of nat- 

 ural experiments had been the only guide. 

 Imbued with the scientific spirit, and con- 

 vinced of the importance of the experi- 

 mental method in sanitary science, as dem- 

 onstrated at the Lawrence Experiment Sta- 

 tion, where they were among the earliest 

 workers, Messrs. Allen Hazen and George 



W. Fuller, now sanitary engineers of the 

 first rank, caused the same methods to be 

 invoked and applied before embarking 

 upon the actual purification of the water 

 supplies of Pittsburgh, Albany, Louisville, 

 Cincinnati and other cities, with which they 

 have had to deal. Still more recently, Mr. 

 Fuller has planned and conducted, at an 

 expense of $50,000 or more, a series of 

 elaborate experiments in order to determine 

 the best methods for the purification of the 

 sewage of the city of Columbus, Ohio. The 

 results of all these experiments are every- 

 where conceded to have been so valuable 

 and instructive that well-advised munici- 

 palities to-day rightly hesitate to embark 

 upon large and costly schemes of sanitation 

 without first having made extensive experi- 

 ments, locally conducted, bearing upon the 

 solution of their own peculiar problems. 

 It has been learned, moreover, by both 

 experiment and experience, that the terms 

 'water' and 'sewage' which have so long 

 been used in the abstract in sanitary sci- 

 ence, when applied to concrete natural 

 waters, and municipal or manufacturing 

 wastes, ought rather to be made plural, for 

 the reason that the waters of various parts 

 of the country, and the sewages of different 

 communities, differ so widely, one from an- 

 other, as to require widely different meth- 

 ods for their successful treatment. 



In other forms of sanitary practise also, 

 such as the drainage of marshes, the petrol- 

 izing of ponds or stocking them with fish, 

 the experimental method has been usefully 

 employed. Experiments upon the improve- 

 ment of cows and eow-stables have given 

 good results in cleaner and more normal 

 milk. Experiments in street cleaning have 

 shown that dirty streets are an evil, but not 

 a necessary evil. Experiments in the sepa- 

 ration and utilization of wastes have yield- 

 ed results of sanitary and financial impor- 

 tance. Experiments like that of the city 

 of Munich on the effect of sewerage upon 



