DEVOTED TO THE STON MEDICA PRESERVATION OF HEALTH, MENTAL AND PHYSICAL CULTURE. BRARY ASS A. N. BELL, A.M., M.D., Editor. T. P. CORBALLY, A.M., M.D., Associate Editors. NEW YORK: A. N. BELL. CATALOGUED, 5/11/84... Entered according to Act of Congress, A.D. 1888, by A. N. BELL, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 384 N. THE SANITARIAN. JULY, 1888. NUMBER 224. THE EXAMINATION OF DRINKING WATER. READ BEFORE THE NORFOLK DISTRICT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, NOVEMBER 29TH, 1887. By J. A. TANNER, M.D., Boston, Mass. It is not my intention to discuss minutely the various methods for examining drinking water, or to attempt to point out any general or special procedure for examining and keeping pure the water supplies of cities, as the length of an article embracing such questions would be too great for this occasion. In view of the great hygienic importance of a supply of good drinking water, and the implicit confidence placed by many in the chemical examinations for the organic impurities in water, it will not be out of place to give a short criticism upon the value of these examinations in order that as physicians, not as chemists, we may form an idea of the ground we are walking upon when relying upon the reports based on such examinations. Considering the multiplication of the sources producing waste products of a suspicious character, and the large increase of natural pollutions which tend to render impure the water supply of large communities, the question arises whether we are in command of a method for the examination of water that will give even an approximate idea as to its wholesomeness or unwholesomeness. Accepting as established the germ theory of the cause of disease-and the points brought forward in favor of it are strong-and in that connection viewing the recognized chemical methods used in examining water, it is |