The Progress of Chemical Industry. 
647 
much to diminish suffering and preserve life. While upon this 
topic I may just allude to another instance in Avhich chemistry has 
come to the assistance of medical science ; I mean in the production 
and investigation of those anaesthetic agents which play so important 
a part in modern surgery, and which have done so much to alleviate 
human suffering. 
But while the ferments produced by micro-organisms are on the 
one hand so pernicious, it is very doubtful whether, on the other 
hand, they are not equally beneficial, if it be really the case that such 
processes as digestion are in a great measure due to their action. 
How far the nitrification of the soil may be due to micro-organisms 
is a question not yet absolutely solved, though strong presumption 
has been raised of their being, at all events, potent factors in the 
case. 
Now that so many diseases have been traced to pathogenic ( i.e . 
disease-producing) organisms, which arc constantly present in water 
contaminated by sewage, the question of the vitality of these 
organisms and their germs has been rightly regarded as one of great 
public importance, and the Boyal Society in conjunction with the 
London County Council has instituted an investigation into it, 
which is being diligently prosecuted both from the botanical and the 
chemical points of view. The remarkable power of light, whether 
that of the sun or electric, in sterilising the germs of some micro- 
organisms, already to some extent previously known, has been con- 
clusively demonstrated by Professor Ward. 
Much has been done of late years by chemists towards the 
purification of sewage with the view of rendering the effluents from 
the ultimate drains of our large municipalities as innocuous as 
possible, and the results obtained have been in many instances 
satisfactory. They would, no doubt, have been even more so had 
not the imperative demands of economy limited the cost. Still, 
whatever may be done, I am inclined to think that there is much 
truth in the metrical abstract of a paper read some years ago before 
the Royal Society : — 
“ Sewage, however disinfected, 
Is not from ill results protected ; 
Though made to all appearance pure, 
It still remains, not safe, hut sneer." 
I will not attempt to discuss the important question of the dis- 
posal of the sewage of our great towns, but to many it will appear 
as somewhat of a disgrace to our powers of applying chemical know- 
ledge that such vast accumulations of what were originally highly 
fertilising substances should be discharged into the estuary of the 
Thames, and not only be absolutely wasted, but converted into a 
perpetual nuisance, brought up at each tide within the limits of the 
metropolis from which they started. 
It is true that within the last fifty years we have imported 
enormous quantities of guano, phosphates, and nitrates, but of these 
there must eventually become a scarcity, if not an end. In the 
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