sewage are probably all destroyed, though this point may need further study.

While the effluent from a septic tank could never be regarded as a potable water, a great purification has taken place. In certain carefully studied plants this purification has amounted to fifty per cent., and in some few cases this figure has been con siderably exceeded. The advantages of the septic over other systems are: First, its comparatively low cost of installation and maintenance; second, the absence of any large quantity of sediment or "sludge," so marked in the chemical treatment, and which is so troublesome in its final disposal; third, even if this form of treatment is to be followed by sand filtration, the removal of the suspended matters and consequent prevention of choking of the filter beds is of most decided advantage; fourth, because of the previous removal of much prutescible material, the sand beds can be worked at a higher rate and a smaller area will, therefore, be required.

It can hardly be doubted that even where the septic system by itself is not sufficient, it will, nevertheless, form an integral part of any system to be constructed in the future where conditions are not unusually favorable or peculiar.

JOURNALS WANTED.

OHIO MEDICAL RECORDER Vol. I, No. 1 (4 copies), No. 2 (3), No. 3 (4), No. 4 (4), No. 5 (4), No. 6 (4), No. 8 (3), No. 9 (1) No. 10 (4), No. 12 (4). Vol. II, No. 1 (3), No. 3 (3), No. 6 (3), No. 8 (1), No. 9 (2), No. 11 (2). Vol. III, No. 1 (2), No. 3 (2), No. 11 (1), No. 12 (2). Vol. IV, No. 1 (1), No. 8 (1). Vol. V, No. 1 (1), No. 4 (2), No. 6 (2), No. 7 (1), No. 8 (1), No. 9 (2).

COLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL-Vol. II, No. 11 (1).

Anyone who will be kind enough to furnish us with the : above-named numbers will receive for each copy returned ten .cents, or credit for two months' subscription to the COLUMBUS MEDICAL JOURNAL.

SEWAGE DISPOSAL OR PURIFICATION.

III. THE FILTRATION OR LAND PROCESS.

BY DR. D. N. KINSMAN,

Former Health Officer of Columbus.

This matter is not so clear before my mind as it was several years ago. There is a problem before Columbus that must be solved some time. We have sewers in abundance, but no system. I don't know that it would be possible without a great outlay to have all empty into one central station. We have the northeast sewer emptying into Alum creek; on the West Side the intercepting sewer coming down the bed of the river, and on the West Side still another line known as the West Side sewers. These sewers are not of the same level. They have recently done what I proposed eight years ago. Before I was health officer I was interested in the question of sewage and wrote to an expert and asked what it would cost for him to come here and give a plan. He told me it would cost $500. I communicated that information to the powers that were-that are no longer-and the proposition was not accepted. At last they came back to the expert proposed eight years ago. There is no possibility of unification without enormous outlay. The problem is not only what has been mentioned here, but we have to take into consideration in the construction of sewers the amount of water that has got to go into to them each day. That is the initial factor. The next question is the disposal of the one-fourth inch of rain water that falls on the average every day of the year. The rain water and what we call distinctly sewage have to be taken care of.

The proposition is how this can be done by broad irrigation. This is no new problem. It has been carried on for a quarter of a century in Europe, at Berlin, Rheims and Paris. It is not an experiment, but it has been demonstrated that it is a method for clearing up of sewage that is practicable and can be carried on so as not to cause offense. Virchow said that he had

never been able to find a morbific germ a meter's depth in these filters.

The land that must be used under these circumstances must certainly be high that it may be drained readily. There is no use in taking the sewage out of a river unless the water can be returned to the water course. The only place that I ever saw about the city of Columbus that seemed practicable for the establishment of a sewage farm is a mile at least below where the sewers were originally started. At this place there is a point of land that lies between the low ground of the river and the big run, which is another water course on the other side, and on that point possibly a plant might be made for irrigation, in which the water could be easily carried on the other side of that point. When you consider the millions of gallons of water that have to be taken care of in the city of Columbus, you can see the amount of land necessary is a matter of no small importance, so far as expense is concerned. When you have finally become possessed of the land, it must be inclosed and drained to the depth of not less than six feet. Fifty or one hundred acres or more would be required for this farm, and you can see it is no longer a small financial problem. When these plants are made extensive enough they seem to return the water perfectly clear to the streams. I believe all that is required in this discussion is to tell the way in which this matter is accomplished. It is a fact that filtering beds require care. In all these filters it is curious that the first water is never as pure as that which becomes adherent to the sand, which increases the activity of the filter bed.

SEWAGE DISPOSAL OR PURIFICATION.

IV. WATER POLLUTION.*

BY G. M. CLOUSE, M. D.

The source of all water supply is the rainfall, which is about forty inches annually in Scioto valley. That which does not evaporate flows into its lowest levels and other portions perculate to certain depths and forms subsoil and spring waters. Nature there is no pure water, chemically speaking. What is meant by pure water is that no organic or inorganic matter is in sufficient quantities to question its potable qualities. Water can be as dark as coffee and be potable, and, on the other hand, clear as a crystal and be polluted. It is not essential that water be as clear as a crystal and be polluted. It is essential that water used for culinary purposes should not contain pathogenic organisms or ptomains.

Water may be pure a certain length of time and at a certain place, then change without visible manifestation. The importance of a pure water supply cannot be over-estimated; no matter if the bonded debt is enormous in obtaining and maintaining pure water, it is a good investment compared to expenses of sickness caused by contaminated or polluted water. No animal or vegetable life can exist without water, and if one-half of our bodily weight is water, and nine-tenths of our blood is water, it should prove the very great importance of having it

pure.

How does water become polluted, can be answered by asking what can be done to prevent it from being polluted, with the ever-increasing density of population, and we wonder why it is as pure as it is, when we realize that water is practically everywhere on this globe and that it is the greatest natural solvent and, consequently, a carrier of all known germs.

Among the more common methods of pollution of lake and stream waters, is, first, sewage, garbage, dead animals and all sorts of dumpage; second, waste products of factories, sawdust and subsoil water; third, rains flushing the surface and draining into the natural bodies. By far the most dangerous

* Read before the Columbus Academy of Medicine, April 3, 1901.

and yet the most common method of pollution is the sewage opening into water supplies.

The more sluggish the flow of water the greater the danger of contamination; and, also, the greater the density of population, the more polluted the water may become. Streams and lakes are not polluted only by the cities or towns on the banks but by the entire population within that water-shed. For instance: Scioto valley is composed of twenty-four counties, including parts of counties, or six thousand four hundred and thirty-two square miles, having over half a million of people, or nearly ninety per square mile. Add the waste from animals and all sorts of manufacturing, and the decayed vegetable material, then we can realize with what great tonnage of contaminating material the Scioto river is burdened.

England's Commission on River Pollution reported that there is no river in the United Kingdom which is long enough to purify itself of sewage received at its source. Self-purification of waters, whether by light, air or dilution, is very unreliable and often dangerous. Rapid multiplication is the chief business of bacteria, but they live several days, sometimes months. They are usually fewer in number during the summer season because the streams contain more spring water and less surface flushings. But during the autumn, when the rainfall is increased, the over-abundant decayed vegetable matter and many kinds of bacteria are washed from the land surface to the stream or lake; it is then that sickness is more prevalent and the death rate increased. Proof many times establishes the fact that infectious diseases are distributed by means of water. It is well known that typhoid fever is more prevalent in the fall, and is, therefore, called also autumnal fever for reason just mentioned.

Streams naturally become more foul during the heated weather or droughts because there is less dilution, or that decomposition of algae is greater than the consumption. Algae is a water-weed formation. Pathogenic and putrefactive bacteria and ptomains are the most dreaded germs found in our polluted waters. But we must have water if it is as filthy as Andersonville Prison or Pekin waters, but let us see to it that it is purified by filtration or otherwise, beyond, at least, a reasonable question, and let us have plenty of it. The taxpayers