Report on the effects of sewage contamination upon the River Thames / by William Odling.

  • William Odling
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the effects of sewage contamination upon the River Thames / by William Odling. 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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    G ■wholesome, provided the absence of air has been absolutely maintained. With an inadequate supply of air we have the phenomena of putrefaction. The tissues break up into imperfectly oxidised substances which are more or less offensive according to the nature of the tissue from which they were derived. But in the presence of a large excess of air, more particularly of the air contained in earth and water, these imperfectly oxidised and offensive products become completely oxidised and inoffensive. When animal matter decomposes in contact with a sufficient amount of fully oxidised earth or water, the formation and destruction of the offensive products are almost simultaneous. The organic matter, both of sewer water and of Thames water, may be classified under the following heads. First we have living animal and vegetable organisms of various kinds ; then we have dead organic matter in a sufficiently undecomposed state to serve as food for animalculae; then we have organic matter which is in a semi-oxidised and putre- factive condition, and which cannot furnish food for animal- culm, but must undergo a further oxidation; and lastly we have organic matter that has been so thoroughly oxidised as to be innoxious. Hitherto it has been nearly always assumed that the organic matter of the river, and of water generally, was all of it objectionable, and that the quantity of organic matter in the water was a criterion of its offensive- ness. My own experiments have tended largely to show the incorrectness of this assumption. We know that animal life cannot be supported without organic matter; and sea- water, which is so fertile in animal life, I have found to contain habitually a greater amount of organic matter than ever exists in river water. Moreover, the water of the Thames at high tide almost invariably contains a larger proportion of organic
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