A manual of practical hygiene : prepared especially for use in the medical service of the army / by Edmund A. Parkes.
- Parkes, Edmund A. (Edmund Alexander), 1819-1876.
- Date:
- 1864 ;
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A manual of practical hygiene : prepared especially for use in the medical service of the army / by Edmund A. Parkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![matter is also common. This organic matter is said to be nitrogenous, and is sometimes called vegetable albumen. And indeed it seems probable that a nitrogenous vegetable matter is not uncommon in waters. In most of these cases the organic matter is of vegetable origin, and con- sists of hum in and vdmin, and of acids derived from humus, such as the crenic acid (C24H120]G + 3HO), which on exposure becomes aprocrenic acid (C48H9) 024 + 4HO), ulmic acid (C4uHu012), humic acid (C40HI2O12), and geic acid (C4uH]2014). All these acids are non-nitrogenous (Mulder), but combine eagerly with ammonia. In waters which enter into the list of mineral waters, other substances are found—the so-called Glairine or the Zoogene, which are nitrogenous substances.* Organic matter of animal origin, and containing nitrogen, sometimes passes into water, and is then usually derived from the habitations or works of men, or from decomposing animals living in or accidentally passing into water. The contents of cesspools or sewers drain into springs, or are conducted into rivers, or the water permeates through soil impregnated more or less with these things. The exact composition of the organic matter has not been de- termined ; urea would necessarily soon pass into carbonate of ammonia, and the other organic matters of the urine are not very stable'. Nitrogenous, foecal, and biliary matters are probably less easily decomposed, and these possibly give a large amount of the animal organic matter. But in addition, decomposed flesh and other animal matters from butchers' shops and slaughter- houses, and from dust-heaps and lay-stalls ; substances from tripe-houses and gut-spinners ; from size, horn, and isinglass manufactories, and from similar trades, often pass into well and spring water. Almost all these substances in decomposing produce both nitrous and nitric acid and ammonia, and such waters are often rich in nitrites and nitrates. Most of these animal substances give no taste or smell to the water unless ammonia is found in great quantities, which is seldom the case, or sulphuretted hydrogen. A water may contain as much as twenty, or even thirty, grains per gallon, and be considered good by those who drink it. In those who are unaccustomed to it, or in all, apparently, under certain conditions of decom- position, such as high temperature, water of this kind produces diarrhceal, and even choleraic symptoms, and there is some evidence to show that it pre- disposes to true cholera, as will be presently noted. Possibly the organic matter may, under certain conditions, commence to undergo fermentative changes, and then becomes suddenly poisonous; but it seems likely that the perfectly dissolved animal organic matter is not quite so injurious as that which is merely suspended. In addition to these ill-defined substances, certain fatty acids have been detected in drinking water—viz., butyric, formic, propionic, caproic, and acetic.t In a case recorded by Kraut, the water came from a marsh, and volatile fatty acids were formed on standing. Scheweizer j detected butyric acid in the water of a well, which was in part fed by the water of a trench many hundred feet distant, which was full of animal and vegetable debris. This water could not be used by men or ani- mals, and contained no less than 1*5 grammes per litre or 105 grains per gallon of butyrate of lime. * Zoogene is a sort of gelatinous substance which has been noticed in the mineral waters of Baden, Ischia, and Plombieres. Glairine or baregine is a somewhat similar substance found in the sulphurous waters of the Pyrenees. The sulfuraire, a confervoid growth, is also found in this water, and has been confounded with the glairine. | Scherer and Kraut, Annalend. Chem. und Pharm. 1856; Band 99, p. 257: and Band 103, p. 29 a, p. ;jy. I Oesterlen s Zeitschrifl fur Hygiene; vol. i. p. 166.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21008747_0036.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
