Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-10
PURIFYING WATER
Bacteria Yields to Copper
Sulphate Treatment.
ALL ALGAE KILLED
GERMS OF TYPHOID AND OTHER
DISEASES DESTROYED.
Discovery of a Government Scientist
at shington-Working Toward
Solution of Great Problem.

Gilbert H. Grosyenor, in the December Century.
Man would seem to have at last discov
cred an effective weapon against typhoid
fever. Asiatic cholera and similar merciless
scourges which invade our intestinal and
digestive organs through polluted water. 1t
Is yet too soon. to declare positively that
we shall eXterminate these dread diseases,
but we have good reason to believe that
we shall be able to drive them out of cities
and towns. and camps and prisons, and
wherever men are living herded close to-
gether. The weapon is not of steel or iron,
hut copper, the most convenient form being
the common compound of copper and sui
phur known as blue vitrol. copper sulphate.
Every school laboratory contains some
beautiful blue crystals of copper sulphate.
Every school boy for generations has dab
bled with these blue crystals. or has watch
Ell his teacher use them for ordinary class
loom experiments. And yet who would
have imagined that a pinch of these crys-
tails dissolved in the water tank in the at
tic. or in the cistern or well. would kill any
typhoid germs that might be lurking there;
that its use would insure heaithful drinking
water in a crowded military camp; that 1t
would eXterminate malaria and yellow
fever-carrying mosquitoes in stagnant pools
and swamps by destroying the vegetable
organisms on which the mosquito larvae
feed: that it would In a few hours make
the water of an evi-smelling and foul
locking city reservoir, containing billions
of gallons of water. clean and sweet, and
that the amount of copper that accom-
rlishes all this is so small that while 1t
kills bacteria in the water it does not make
the drinking water poisonous or injurious
to the human system?
Kills Bacteria.
1t has been known for long time that
copper destroys bacteria, but the metal has
not been much used heretofore for the pur-
pcse because scientists have generally be-
ueved that the dose required to kill the
bacteria must be very concentrated-so con-
centrated. in fact. that it would poison the
water. DIR. George T. Moore has now an
nounced. with the authority of the United
States government behind him, that he has
discovered how to get the good effect of
copper without any dangerous result: that
he has way of using copper so diluted
that it cannot hurt baby. and yet so
active that it will destroy virulent cholera
and typhoid baclli in four to five hours.
Few announcements in recent years have
been more important and will bring greater
health and happiness to mankind. AT least
half the population of civilized countries
depends on stored water The suffering
and disease that are inevitable when our
city water supplies become contaminated
are only too well known. We remember
all too WILDLY the horrors OF the llndcd
and Butler epidemics of typhoid. A remedy
against the repetition of such CHASTITY ex-
periences will be one of the greatest bless
irgs science can beStow.
DR.. Moore was graduated at Harvard In
1895. For several years past he has been
a member of the brilliant scientific corps
Of the Department of Agriculture. being the
director of the laboratory of plant ply
siology in the office of the chief pathologist
and Psychologist, bureau of plant industry.
He is the same man who perfected a means
of inoculating sterile ground and making
1t bring forth fruit in abundance.
One of the most difficult problems with
which our cities and towns have to con-
tend is how to keep the water in the reser-
voirs pure and sweet. With the water In
new reservoir there Is. OF course, little
trouble but when the reservoir becomes
several years old. the battle begins How
ever vigilant and careful the water engi-
neer may have been to keep out all impur-
tiles the water begins to smell, and soon
stinks and tastes horribly. The horses re-
fuse it In the watering troughs; the people
rot only cannot drink it. but cannot even
wash in it. The smell varies with the sea-
son and locality. 1t may be of the dried
fish, pig-pen, rotten-eggs, cucumber, geran-
ium or crushed-violet variety. There is not
a section of the United States which does
not. at some time of the year. have trouble
with its water. At times the od0r has
been SO bad that the authorities have drag
sed the bottom for a dead body, or they
have been obliged to shut off the water ior
months at a time.
Naturally the public become indignant
and much alarmed for their health, and
great hue and cry is raised about the bad
management of their officers; whereas, as
matter of fact the engineers are not to
blame The smell is caused by vegetable
matter in the water (algae). which enters
in some ineXplicable way and thriveS in
uuiescent water. Hundreds of water sup
rly systems in the United States have been
rendered unfit for use by this cause alone
The Dpn1riment of Agriculture ana state
and municipal authorities have tried many
different eXpedients to get rid of the algae.
Sometimes the authorities have spent thou
sands of dollars building a roof over the
reservoir. as the algae will not grow in the
dark: but in the case of very large reser-
Voirs the enormous cost prohibits g roof.
They have pumped air into the reservoir;
they have tried to filter out the algae, to
take them out by Swimming, to precipitate
them with alum; or they have emptied the
reservoir. cleaned it and put in cement
bottom.
What Are Alg@p
Probably few people know what algae
are. They must not be confused with the
eel-grass, pickerel-weed, water-plantains,
etc, which are commonly found in reser-
voirs and are most apt to attract attention
Unlike algae, these plants have definite
stem, with roots and leaves, and usually
produce flowers. Then there is the duck
meat, or. Lemna, often seen floating on the
surface. But these are not algae, and are
not responsible for the bad doors and taste
Of water.
AIgae are fowerless plants, cryptic
gains. Though almost invariably found in
water or in very damp places, they have
been little studied. because they have no
economic value, but it is among these
aquatic forms that botansts locate the
ancestors of the entire vegetable kingdom.