Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-05-16
ELECTRICITY FOR BACTERIA.
10 II Practicable to Purify the water Of
City With Dynamoe

Il Il Practicable to Purify the water Of
| City With . Dynamos
Electricity 10 the weapon TO be next employed
in combating those minute vegetable foes 9
| mankind--the disease-producing bacteria-as
STAR reporter was informed by a scientist.
1t 10 believed that very many horrible com
plants, such as typhoid and other fevers. are
| conveyed and distributed by water, so tina
people very commonly boil whatever Of thai
fluid they drink, in order to destroy the germs.
These germs may also be killed by current Of
| electricity, as has been shown by experiments
with bottles Of water containing them. by
passing the current from q battery through q
loop of wire suspended in the water il was
found that small voltage WAS sufficient to de
prive the most active bacteria of life.
The consumption bacillus gave up the
ghost in response to two and a quarter
and robust constitution could not survive
three volts and half. Thus 1t is demon
strated that il the householder would subject
all the drinking water used by his family to
proper electrical treatment he need fear no
foes that might float into his peaceful dwelling
through the city main from polluted river or
q reservoir of pollywogs.
Unfortunately this electrical method would
be too expensive and troublesome for the house.
holder to pursue. Therefore it is suggested
that the city, or water company, shall itself
perform the entire task, delivering the article
it distributes to consumers in a condition
guaranteed not germless, but harmless. There
will be as many disease bacteria in it as ever,
but they will all be dead, so that there can be
no objection to them. SO long as bacillus
microcus or spirillum is not poisonous, peo-
pie are willing to put up with him cheerfully
now that they have learned that there is no
getting away from bacteria. inasmuch as the
air is full of them and they find pasture by
myriads in every ones insides. SO welcome
the microbe who has suffered death by electro
cutionl
Now. according TO the plan proposed, this
work of microbe murder is to be accomplished
at the reservoir whence the citys drink Is
drawn. Nothing could be easier than to 40 APP
ply the energy Of battery by a current at one
place In the supply pipe as to kill with absolute
certainty every microbe that passed through in
the flowing water. A dynamo with a capacity
SO small az 900 volts would do the work per-
fectly for the biggest possible pipe. staying all
the bacteria going through and rendering in
nocuous all the millions of gallons daily that
metropolis consumes. This plan once
adopted, how reasonable it is to conceive in
the imagination sudden and permanent dis
appearance Of typhoid fever and many other
Zymotic diseases, with a corresponding de-
crease in the death rate Incidentally. numer-
GUS persons who, through fear of the deadly
to beer would be happily relieved of apprehen-
sion on this account
The application of the electric current to the
water flowing from the reservoir is q matter OF
no difficulty whatever. All that is necessary is
that length Of the pipe shall be made OF in
sulated material, and through holes in its sides
will be inserted wires representing the poles of
the battery-positive on one sldo and negative
on the other. Set the dynamo going, and the
current springs through the water, filing it
with powerful electric waves necessarily fatal
to all living organisms floating in the stream.
The length of insulated pipe must be used to
prevent the electricity from getting away
through the substance Of the pipe. This whole
idea, which seems well worthy of a
trial. was recently presented by Mr..
Richard Meade Bache of Philadelphia in
a paper read before the American
Philosophical Society. Should it prove prac-
ticable it might be applied to milk also. which
is suspected Of being vehicle for the distribu-
ton of scarlet fever and consumption germs.
and each milkman might thus be enabled to
deliver a strictly sterilized product. Then who
would care for the tuberculous COW or feel
alarm when handing the bottle to the baby2