In speaking of the pure-water question, he remarked: Although there are
many theories as to how far water which has once been contaminated by
sewage may again after a time become fit to drink, I am disposed to
think that there has never been a well-proved case of an outbreak of
disease resulting from the use of drinking water where the chemist would
not unhesitatingly on analysis have condemned the water as an impure
source; and it appears probable that, whatever may be the actual causes
of certain diseases--i.e., whether germs or chemical poisons, the
_materies morbi_ which finds its way into the river at the sewage
outfall is destroyed, together with the organic impurity, after a
certain length of flow. He pressed that there should be no further delay
in bringing the Act for the Prevention of Pollution of Rivers into
operation, and in enforcing the provisions of the Acts. In regard to the
pollution of the air, he called attention to the fact that nearly fifty
years ago Mr. Edwin Chadwick impressed upon the community the evils
which were caused by the impure condition of the air in our towns owing
to the retention of refuse around houses. The speaker remarked that the
gases, which were the result of putrefaction, were offensive to the
smell, and some of them, such as sulphureted hydrogen, when present in
undue proportions in the air, would kill persons outright, or when those
gases were in smaller proportions in the air breathed by people, there
would be a lowered tone of health in the individuals exposed to them.
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