The biological examination of water / by C.J.H. Warden.

  • Warden, Charles James Hislop, 1851-1900.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The biological examination of water / by C.J.H. Warden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    THE BIOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF WATER. In the Reichs Gesundheits Amt, Berlin,—where, through the courtesy of Prof. Koch, the late Diredor, I have been permitted to study for some months,—a large number of water analyses are made, special importance being attached to the bacteriological examination. The late Dr. Angus Smith, of Manchester, has described in the Sanitary Record a method of examining water for the presence of micro-organisms, based upon Dr. Koch’s earlier researches, but the system now in force in the Laboratories of the German Imperial Board of Health differ'smaterially. It is not a mere qualitative examina- tion for the detection of micro-organisms, but one by which an approximate determination of the number pre- sent is attained, and it may therefore perhaps be of interest if I describe at length the technique. In England, unfortunately, at the present time there is no institution where Medical Officers of Health and others can receive instruction similar to that afforded at the Gesundheits Amt, Berlin ; and in this communication I assume that the reader has had no previous experience with recent methods of bacteriological research. I have, therefore, thought it advisable to enter rather fully into minutiae which otherwise might have been omitted. Success in bacteriological work is largely dependent upon close attention to details : the methods are simple, but their correct performance is often from this cause d.fficult of attainment. The role which micro-organisms play in the causation of disease is year by year becoming better defined ; and the water anal>st who wishes to be abreast of the times cannot now confine h's attention solely to the organic ” and “ mineral ” constituents of a water, his attention must also be direded to the organised; and not so much to the larger organisms, visible to the naked eye, but to the smaller forms, the Baderium and othtr allied species. The importance of examining a potable water for micro-organisms cannot be over-estimated. There is abundant evidence to justify the belief that the germs of at least two diseases—cholera and typhoid fever—are fie-