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Y. — On the Microscopical Examination of Water. 
By Wentworth Lascelles Scott, Public Analyst to the County 
of Glamorgan and the Borough of Hanley ; late Analyst and 
Microscopist to the Hon. East India Company, &c. 
(Taken as read before the Royal Microscopical Society, Nov. 7 , 1877 .) 
In spite of the number of books and treatises bearing upon the 
subject of this brief note, which have been published from time to 
time, the results of the microscopical examination of waters from a 
hygienic point of view are generally so vague and unsatisfactory, 
that little, if any, importance is attached to them in the majority of 
instances, whilst by more than one high official authority, and by 
fully two-thirds of the private analysts in practice, the systematic 
application of the microscope in water analyses appears to be prac- 
tically ignored. 
I am quite aware that a vast amount of useful work has been 
performed — especially by Feilows of this Society — in relation to 
hydro-microscopy, and that hardly a manual or treatise ‘ On the 
Microscope’ exists which does not include some instructions for 
the collection and observation of the organisms present in water 
from various sources, but, on the other hand, I can discover but 
little attempt to reduce such instructions to any uniform and prac- 
tical rule, or to gather together results in such a manner as to 
render them at all comparative. Hence if, as is very frequently the 
case, the chemical results of a water oblige the analyst to pro- 
nounce a somewhat doubtful judgment thereon, the microscope 
properly applied should yield an absolute and an unmistakable 
verdict which should be identical, whether the instrument was 
applied by any one or more skilled observers. At present this is 
not the case, and I have now before me the opinions of three 
experts upon the quality, as shown by the microscope, of one and 
the same specimen of water, these three opinions being utterly at 
variance with each other from first to last. 
A case of a somewhat similar character occurred not long ago in 
my ordinary practice. A sample of well-water was sent to me by 
the Local Board of Health of Wednesfield for analysis. I found 
the water to be chemically passable, but microscopically bad, and 
condemned it accordingly. A local chemist having reported the 
water to be good and wholesome, the owner of the property and 
the Local Board agreed to obtain a third opinion. By the 
merest accident the gentleman selected was one who is in the 
habit of attaching some importance to microscopic results, and 
these induced him at once to designate the water as “unfit for 
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