The metropolitan water supply / by W. Scott Tebb.

  • Tebb, William Scott, -1917.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The metropolitan water supply / by W. Scott Tebb. 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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    Meanwhile the subject was taken up by the Board of Health con- sisting of the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Ashley (afterwards the Earl of Shaftesbury), Mr. Edwin Chadwick and Dr. South wood Smith. The Board reported. May 28, 1850, on the Metropolitan Water Supply, as follows:— ]. That for domestic use it is inferior to the average quality of waters supplied to towns. 2. That its inferiority as a supply for domestic use arises chiefly from an excess of hardness. 3. That even when taken above the reach of pollution from the sewers of the Metropolis, it contains an excess varying with the season of animal and vegetable matter. 4. That the water taken by the Lambeth Company from the Thames opposite Hungerford Market is charged with animal and vegetable impurities apparently the effect of the discharge of sewer water, which render it wholly unfit for use, and highly dangerous to the health of the persons who drink it. 5. Whilst we believe that Thames water taken up beyond the influence of the Metropolitan drainage, and filtered, may be used without injury to the public health, and may be employed tempor- arily until other sources can be laid under contribution we advise that Thames water and other water of like quality, as to hardness, be as early as practicable abandoned. The Government now felt that something would have to be done, and early in 1851 they appointed a Commission of three eminent chemists, viz: Professor Graham, Master of the Mint; Dr. W. A. Miller, Professor of Chemistry at Kings’ College ; and Dr. A. W. Hofmann, Professor of Chemistry of the Eoyal College of Chemistry. A careful inquiry was made including a number of analyses, and the Commission found that “ when in good condition, the Thames water also possesses the pecuhar and agreeable brightness of chalk waters,” they further described it as a “palatable watei’,” and that there existed “no sufficient grounds for beheving that the mineral contents of the water supplied to London are injurious to health ”; but against these grounds of commendation there were certain disadvantages, thus, the Thames water was liable to “turbidity” from floods, and the water acquired a yellow colour, which was of an “ unusually persistent character,” and only very partially removed by sand filtration. The river they said was particitlarly liable to this contamination “in the latter part of autumn and early months of winter, from the extensive decompo-