The water supply in ships from its beginning to the present time / Henry G. Beyer.

  • Beyer, Henry Gustav, 1850-1918.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The water supply in ships from its beginning to the present time / Henry G. Beyer. 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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    BEGINNING TO THE PRESENT TIME.* HENRY G. BEYER. M. D. Medical Instructor U. S. Navy. WASHINGTON D. C. The problem of the water supply for sea-going ships is one of the most important and, at the same time, one of the most difficult to solve of all the problems of ' naval hygiene. It certainly is not a simple question. Ships can not always choose the source of their water supply. It may be impure or even infected to begin with. But even granting that it was faultless when collected, it may not remain wholesome during a long cruise. The early efforts of the old sanitarians to provide faultless drinking water for seamen are full of pathos. Before the last century men did not know in what wholesome drinking water consisted. Much less did they know how to preserve it pure and sweet. When in addition to the ignorance of the age we find all efforts toward progress met either with cold indifference or ac- tive opposition, we may easily see why so little advance was made and feel a deep sympathy with the old ship’s surgeons, Blane, Lind. Trotter, Eonssagrieves and many others in their fight against such obstacles. To-day, with the help of chemistry and biology, the naval hygienist has come nearer solving the problem of a perfect water supply. While there are yet a few details to be perfected, we feel that they will soon he remedied and we, therefore look to the future with confident hope of success. SOURCES AND COLLECTION OF WATER. Until recently little or nothing was known about what drinking water should or should not contain. Of • Read in the Section on Hygiene and Sanitary Science of the American Medical Association, at the Fifty-sixth Annual Session, July, 1905.
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