July 16, 1870.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
47 
the highest forms of infusoria abounded. This may he 
noticed in every river of the kingdom which receives 
the sewage of a large town. At first, the sedimentary 
matters deposit and putrefy; hut the supernatant water, 
containing all the soluble constituents of the sewage, 
passes on, and rapidly becomes clearer and clearer, until 
its organic matter is appropriated by living beings, or 
destroyed by oxidation. This process is not only indi¬ 
cated by the marked improvement in the appearance and 
odour of the water, but it is actually demonstrated by 
the character of the vegetation, which passes successively 
from the simplest and lowest forms of fungi to conferva , 
calothrix nivea , vaucheria, etc., until at last anacharis, nas¬ 
turtium, veronica, etc. abound; and when these are clean 
and healthy we may be assured that the sewage, in its 
noxious condition, is no longer in existence, and that the 
most refined skill of the chemist will fail to discover it. 
I have, on a former occasion, fully discussed this im¬ 
portant question, and I should not again refer to it if it 
had not been made a special subject of comment, and ap¬ 
parently* * * * * § of experimental inquiry, by the Rivers Pollu¬ 
tion Commission; for at page 18 of their recent report 
they say, “ It has often been stated, but so far as we 
know without proof, that the organic matter contained 
in sewage, and other similar polluting materials, is 
rapidly oxidized, during the flow of a river into which 
such materials are discharged. Thus, it has been as¬ 
serted (Report of Royal Commission on Water Supply, 
p. 79) that if sewage be mixed with twenty times its 
volume of river water, the organic matter which it con¬ 
tains will be oxidized, and completely disappear whilst 
the river is flowing ‘a dozen miles or so!’” Now, I 
think it is right to state that the quotation is not fairly 
made, and that the sense and substance of my evidence 
herein alluded to are not fully expressed; for on refer¬ 
ring to the page from which the Rivers Pollution Com¬ 
missioners have quoted, it will be found that I spoke of 
oxidation as only one of the agencies concerned in the 
destruction of organic matter in a running stream. My 
words are these: “ Considering the powerfully oxidizing 
influence of water upon sewage, the many agencies which 
are at work destroying it, the power of precipitation, the 
using of it up by vegetable and aquatic plants, and by 
fish, and above all by the power of oxidation, I think 
none of the sewage discharged into the Thames can, at 
the present time, be discovered at Hampton; ” and when 
I am asked how far it would have to flow before it would 
be broken up into other chemical compounds, I answer 
thus: “I have made a great number of chemical experi¬ 
ments to determine that. I have examined most of the 
rivers in England, and this is the conclusion that has 
been come to, not only in my mind, but in the minds of 
all the engineersf who have devoted their attention to 
the subject—that if ordinary sewage, containing, we will 
say, nearly 100 grs. of solid matter per gallon, such as 
London sewage, out of which probably something like 
14 grs. or 15 grs. are organic, be mixed with twenty 
times its bulk of the ordinary river water, and flows a 
dozen miles or so, there is not a particle of that sewage 
to be discovered by any chemical process.”]! I ought 
* The Commissioners have given a full account of the ex¬ 
periments and data on which they base their conclusions. 
(See Report of Commission on the Foliation of Rivers, pp. 
18-22.) 
f Apart from the consideration that this, being a chemical 
question, cannot be decided by engineers, it has been pointed 
out by the Royal Commissioners (Report, p. 22) that en¬ 
gineers and superficial observers have been misled as to the 
self-purifying power of flowing water. They have also pointed 
out the circumstance which has led to the erroneous impres¬ 
sion. Mere clarification of water is no proof that it has been 
purified sufficiently to be wholesome, and we are not aware 
that Dr. Letheby has anywhere published chemical evidence 
to support his views. It is, however, essential that in a matter 
of such importance this should be done; for no mere assertion, 
however authoritative will suffice. 
X Dr. Letheby’s influence in regard to sanitary matters is 
perhaps to have said by any reliable chemical process; 
for I will not answer for the results of such processes as 
are used by Dr. Frankland for the determination of “or¬ 
ganic carbon” and “organic nitrogen,” processes that 1 
have already criticized, and which others have declared 
to be so faulty, that the range of error embraced by them 
is greater than the range of possible truth. It is curious, 
however, that even with these processes the Thames at 
Hampton, according to Dr. Frankland, is purer than the 
Thames at its source, notwithstanding that it has re¬ 
ceived the drainage from all the towms on its banks.* 
But to return to the subject, the Pollution Commis¬ 
sioners say, “ We thought it very undesirable that a sub¬ 
ject of such vital importance to our inquiry should any 
longer rest upon mere opinion, and we have therefore deter¬ 
mined to submit it to careful experimental investigation.” 
Their investigations were of two kinds—namely, an ex¬ 
amination of the Mersey,' the Irwell, and the Darwin, 
at different parts of their course, choosing the winter 
time,f when most of the agencies to which I have referred 
were dormant; and, secondly, by examining air and 
sewage contained in a bottle. Both of these investiga¬ 
tions were of the most unsatisfactory kind; for from 
what I know of the rivers in question, there is no part 
of their course so free from the access of impurities as to 
furnish even remotely the sort of evidence upon which 
we can rely. The evidence, however, which they do 
furnish is that, notwithstanding a continued access of 
impurity, there is a continued improvement of their con¬ 
dition ; and as for the experiments with sewage in a 
bottle, they are so absurdly ridiculous, as a means of 
testing so important a question, that I am ashamed to 
refer to them. The proper way in which such an in¬ 
quiry should be conducted is an appeal to the large facts 
of nature; for everywhere the rivers of England are 
receiving the sewage of towns, and yet they are every¬ 
where undergoing a rapid self-purification. If this were 
not so, their condition would be frightful,]; and we should 
expect a universal pestilence. In this metropolis, for 
example, the water which we drink is taken from the 
Thames after it has received the sewage of thousands of 
people, and yet, to use the words of Dr. Frankland, “it 
is purer and better adapted for domestic purposes at 
Hampton,” where it is taken, “ than at any other part of 
its course. § And how has this been effected but by oxi¬ 
dation, and by the operations of animal and vegetable 
life ? When Dr. Miller was asked by the Royal Com¬ 
missioners on Water Supply, whether he had made any 
experiments on the power of water, in a given course, to 
oxidize organic matter, he said, “ I ascertained a remark¬ 
able result in 1859 upon the river: I took specimens of 
the water at Kingston, at Hammersmith, at Somerset 
House, at Greenwich, at Woolwich, and at Erith on the 
same day, and examined the quantity of oxygen which 
the water contained at all these different points. I found 
that the quantity of oxygen at Kingston was the ordi¬ 
nary or normal proportion; at Somerset House it was 
much diminished, at Greenwich the whole of the oxygen 
had disappeared, at Woolwich it was in much the same 
condition, and at Erith the water was very much im¬ 
proved, showing that this diminution of oxygen had been 
produced by its action upon the water contaminated with 
so great, that it is necessary to say the result which he has 
arrived at is directly at variance with all chemical probability, 
and with the general opinion of chemists. It is also incon¬ 
sistent with the direct evidence of facts bearing on the subject. 
* Dr. Frankland clearly shows that the water of the Thames 
is purer near the source of the river, but he says that, from 
Lechlade downwards, it is purer at Hampton than elsewhere. 
-j- The experiments were made between March 10th and 
June 11th. 
X The condition of some rivers is frightful. 
§ Dr. Frankland and Dr. Odling have shown in their Re¬ 
port on Water Supply to the Royal Commission, that the 
greater purity of the Thames at Hampton is, in great mea¬ 
sure, due to admixture of tributary water. 
D 3 
