History of Sanitation
Forfatter: J. J. Cosgrove
År: 1910
Forlag: Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co
Sted: Pittsburgh U.S.A
Sider: 124
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114
HISTORY OF SANITATION
by the Rivers Pollution Commission, a royal commission
appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing the
pollution of rivers.
Progress was not at a standstill during this time, how-
ever, but, on the contrary, chemical precipitation of sewage
and purification by the application to land were striving
with each other for supremacy. Up to that time, the
important part that bacteria play in the reduction of
organic matter was not understood, and instead of affording
every advantage for the decomposition and fermentation of
organic matter under the least objectionable conditions, the
principal efforts of those interested in the problem were to
prevent or put off as long as possible the septic action
of sewage. It was not until so late as the year 1880 that
attention was turned toward the possibility of the micro-
organisms in sewage. In that year Dr. Mueller took out a
patent endeavoring to utilize the micro-organism in sewage
for the purpose of purification. According to Dr. Mueller’s
views, “The contents of sewage are chiefly of organic
origin, and in consequence of this an active process of
decomposition takes place in sewage through which the
organic matters are dissolved into mineral matters, or, in
short, are mineralized, and thus become fit to serve as food
for plants. To the superficial observer, however, it is
chiefly a process of digestion, in which the various, mostly
microscopically small, animal and vegetable organisms
utilize the organically fixed power for their life purpose.
“The decomposition of sewage in its various stages is
characterized by the appearance of enormous numbers of
spirilla, then of vibrios (swarming spores) and, finally, of
moulds. At this stage commences the reformation of
organic substance with the appearance of chlorophyl-
holding protococcus.”
About the same time, December, 1881, the account of
Mouras’s automatic scavenger was published in France.
Mouras had been working and experimenting- along the
same lines as Dr. Mueller, and the result was an apparatus
consisting of a closed vessel or vault, with a water seal