The rise & progress of aerobic methods of sewage disposal : being notes of a lecture delivered before the Association of Managers of Sewage Disposal Works at the Royal Sanitary Institute on March 18th, 1911 / by W.J. Dibdin.

  • Dibdin, W. J. (William Joseph), 1850-1925.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The rise & progress of aerobic methods of sewage disposal : being notes of a lecture delivered before the Association of Managers of Sewage Disposal Works at the Royal Sanitary Institute on March 18th, 1911 / by W.J. Dibdin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    (which Graham] said was due to “ Eremaeausis ”) of sewaare in soils was due to an organised ferment, which was confirmed by Warington, and in 1881 Frank Hatton described before the Chemical Society a brilliant series of experimental demon- strations of the effect of various gases on bacteria in the presence of fresh meat and water, and showed how oxygen was used up, carbonic acid formed, and nitrogen eliminated concurrently with the decomposition of organic bodies. Warington in 1882, at the Society of Arts, described his idea of a filter bed “ having a greater oxidising power than A'ould be possible by an ordinary soil and sub-soil. Such a bed would be made by laying over a system of drain pipes a few feet of soil obtained from the surface (first 6in.) of a good field.” In the following year Dr. Sorby, in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Dischai’ge of Sewage into the River Thames, remarked : “ A very large portion of the detritus of faeces thus manifestly lost in the river is not lost by decompo- sition, but utilised by countless thousands of living creatures. The difference between the results of these two processes will be at once understood when we reflect on what would be the state of London if all the animals consumed as food were left to decompose in the streets.” In 1884 Dr. Duclaux wrote : “ Whenever and wherever there is a decomposition of organic matter, whether it be the case of a herb or an oak, of a worm or a whale, the work is exclusively done by infinitely small organisms. They are the important, almost the only, agents of universal hygiene ; they clear away more quickly than the dogs of Constantinople or the wild beasts of the desert the remains of all that has had life.” The Royal Commission above referred to adopted these views, but did not clearly differentiate the various functions, and confused matters by referring to “ by fermentation and by oxidation,” and many experimentalists were thereby misled, thinking that by fermentation was meant anaerobic or putre- factive action, to be followed by direct oxidation by immediate chemical combination with the oxygen of the atmosphere—a