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The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
Conservation by sanitation; disposal of waste (including a laboratory guide for sanitary engineers) by Ellen H. RichardsThe Development of the Sanitary Idea Illustrated by the Growth and Municipalization of Water Supplies. Wholesome Water the People's Right
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By the sanitary idea is meant sanitation, not medication-- prevention rather than cure. One objection to the use of hygiene as a synonym is that its meaning is so allied to the practice of medicine. Although the goddess Hygiea was worshiped with enthusiasm and the use of medicinal waters is as old as man, yet all through the ages has lingered the belief that they that are whole have no need of the physician.
The maintenance of health by sanitary environment as a government duty could only come into the thought of men with the rise of democracy, the belief that one man's life was worth as much as his neighbor's, that the strong and the educated were bound to look after the weak and ignorant. The seeds of this element of modern life remained a long time dormant. But a few prophetic souls began to put two and two together in the last half of the eighteenth century. Robert Burns was the voice of the people, 1759-1796, and both poets and prose writers began to treat the mass of men as worthy of consideration.
The sanitary idea is essentially scientific and could not have come into existence before science had somewhat established itself. The discovery of oxygen in 1774 had a profound influence in modifying man's thought on the processes of life and decay. Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, and Count Rumford, 1753-1814, were both interested in natural science as affecting common daily life.
The early death and frequent sickness was a sufficient loss of productiveness to be a matter for national concern, was recognized by the remarkable group of Englishmen who between 1825 and 1850 laid the foundations of sanitary science. Dr. Edwin
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Chadwick's effort to get behind fate to the causes disease; Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson's motto, "National Health is National Wealth" and his description of the city of Hygiea; Dr. William Farr's service in organizing a scheme for registration (1838) now known as vital statistics, proving the value of human life; Dr John Snow's surmise that cholera was spread by the drinking of water impregnated with cholera poison, all tended to an awakening of a national consciousness. The disposal of sewage and its difficulties (1839); the establishment of a Journal of Health (1855); the development of statesmanship as a science, including the conservation of human resources (1859), were followed by scientific investigation as seen in the Rivers Pollution Commission (1865).
These steps taken in England were watched by the civilized world. By the middle of the nineteenth century the value of human life was recognized and a study of the causes that led to the sacrifice of so many citizens in the prime of usefulness was undertaken in many countries.
The economic value of a worker has been the actual fulcrum used to raise the status of the multitude, and perhaps it has been a more powerful force than any mere sentiment of lessening suffering.
Massachusetts followed closely along the same humanitarian lines, establishing the first State Board of Health in 1869. The early workers for it were actuated by the belief that healthy, happy human beings were the State's best, most valuable asset.
There also came clearly into reckoning a social idea, the brotherhood of man, duty to one's neighbor, as is seen by so much sanitary law being considered as founded on the statute of nuisance.
While the right of the family to keep a privy close to its well, no matter how much sickness might come, was jealously maintained, the moment the neighbors complained of nuisance the arm of the law reached the case. It was only with the approach of the twentieth century that the man himself and his family were protected from his own neglect.
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Drinking water and living conditions occupied the attention of the able men who led Massachusetts opinion. By this time the possibility of prevention of most diseases, especially of those known or suspected to be water-borne, was beginning to be recognized by the laity, and the aid of science was invoked to furnish means of detecting dangerous conditions before human life was put in peril. Until about 1880 the appearance of disease was the first proof of an infection. For ten years all countries vied with each other in studies which should enable the health officer, by that time a recognized power in the State, to state positively that a given condition was a menace to the health of the people. It was then that sanitary science, in a certain distinction from medical science, was born.
One of the pioneers in formulating the somewhat vague ideas and insisting upon scientific conceptions of the office of the State in the promotion of sanitation was Dr. George Derby, the first secretary of the Massachusetts States Board of Health.
"I have used one expression about which I wish to enter into some detail, viz., 'State Medicine in Massachusetts.' What is the precise meaning of the expression? It is of very recent growth in our language. It has, in fact, arisen, I believe, within the last few years in England, where already it has become a great power for good. Its objects rank among the most important matters now discussed by the highest intellects and humanest hearts in Great Britain. It is, as I understand it, a special function of a State authority, which, until these later days of scientific investigation, has been left almost wholly unperformed, or exercised only under the greatest incitements to its operation, such as the coming of the plague, cholera, smallpox, or some other equally malignant disease. By this function the authorities of a State are bound to take care of the public health, to investigate the causes of epidemic and other diseases, in order that each citizen may not only have as long a life as nature would give him, but likewise as healthy a life as possible. As the chief object of the physician is the cure, if possible, of any ailment which is submitted to his care, so the far higher
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aim of State Medicine is, by its thorough and scientific investigations of the hidden causes of disease that are constantly at work in an ignorant or debased community, to prevent the very origination of such diseases. Much has already been suggested in England towards the crushing out of fevers, etc. Still more recently one of the grandest results of the State Medicine is its virtual recognition under international law, by the appointment of joint governmental commissioners for the investigation and prevention of the spread of Asiatic cholera."1
[Note 1: 1 First Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, pages 9, 10, Secretary's Report, January, 1870.]
In the same report he writes, "The Board hope to be able hereafter to present such facts and conclusions as may be of some service to the citizen in the conduct of life, and to the legislator in the discharge of his responsible duty."
The high purpose of State investigation he has admirably expressed: "The pollution of streams by industrial establishments and by the sewage of towns has been several times during the past year brought to the notice of the State Board of Health. Judging from the history of still more densely populated manufacturing districts in other parts of the world, the general subject will continue to claim the attention of the people of Massachusetts for many years to come. As the interests of life and health become more definite and more valued, and as manufactories and population grow and multiply, the apparent conflict in this respect between health and industry will yearly become more evident. It is our duty, if possible, to show that these important interests are not irreconcilable, and to give a word of warning in season to prevent their relations from being forgotten until it is too late to remedy the omission except at enormous cost."
The first work done in Massachusetts on the question of pollution of water supplies was that of Professor Nichols of the Institute, in examining the water of Mystic pond. His report is given in the second report of the Board, 1871 (pp. 386-393). In all, nineteen samples were examined for mineral constituents,
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no attempt being made to determine organic impurities other than by the use of the permanganate test.
On the 6th of April, 1872, the Legislature of Massachusetts instructed the State Board of Health "to collect information concerning sewage and the possibility of utilizing it, the pollution of streams and the water supply of towns, and to report at the next session." Thus began the work of Massachusetts, now and for all time a notable example of scientific work.
The examination of the streams begun by Prof. William Ripley Nichols at the laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was prosecuted with an ever-increasing sense of its value until sufficient data were obtained based on science as far as it was sure of its ground.
To the sanitary expert the authorities have seemed to be dilatory, to have been lenient to commercial interests rather than careful of the sanitary welfare of the masses, but it must be confessed that the science of organic growth and decomposition has been of slow development and with much controversy and many seemingly backward steps. So far as the water problem is concerned the crux of the fight was, first, organic matter, what it had to do with disease and how its presence could be detected and the cause removed.
Elaborate studies at this time were undertaken at the request of government authorities in order that they might be just in their decisions.
The State of Michigan followed Massachusetts in the establishment of an active Board of Health, as did Louisiana also, but the latter soon lapsed.
A most important link in the growth of the sanitary idea in America was the Act of Congress of March 3, supplemented by that of June 2, 1879, the first to establish a National Board of Health, the second to require it for five years "to prevent the introduction of contagious and infections disease into the United States." The American Public Health Association and the National Academy of Sciences were named as consulting bodies, and the work first advised was the making of sanitary surveys
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of places remarkably unhealthy or liable to become so. The first Board consisted of Dr. Weir Mitchell, General Francis A. Walker, Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, and Prof. William Barton Rogers, the president of the National Academy.
If this Board did not accomplish what was anticipated, its part in the education of future leaders in sanitation in America should be recognized.
Dr. H. I. Bowditch wrote on sanitary legislation, Dr. Ira Remsen on organic matter in air, Dr. C. F. Folsom, then secretary of the Massachusetts Board, on disinfectants, Dr. R. M. Kedzie on adulteration of food, Colonel George Waring on flow of sewers, Prof. R. Pumpelly on soils and sanitation. The second report contained the most elaborate account of the investigations carried on by Dr. J. W. Mallett of the University of Virginia, on the best method of determining organic matter in potable water and its effect on health. A light on the science of the time is thrown by the naïve statement, "with the cooperation of three chemists each using a different method." Dr. Charles Smart of the United States Army prepared an extensive paper on the water supply of Mobile and water analysis in general. In two years the Board had spent $364,000. The third report brings forward two more pioneers, Rudolph Hering and Ernest Bowditch. The first reported on sewerage, the second on summer resorts.
It will be seen that the work was somewhat discursive and disconnected (as scientific research is conducted to-day) and did not lead to such definite results as seem not to be obtained by a more intensive study of a limited field. In regard to certain lines of work, it was felt in some quarters that conclusions had already been reached by more scientific methods, and the attempt to make binding some other conclusions met with opposition, and a charge of usurpation of authority and of extravagance led Congress to cut the appropriation at the end of the third year; the publication of the Bulletin was suspended at the end of the fourth, and the work lapsed by limitation on June 2, 1883; the property was transferred to the Surgeon-General
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of the Marine Hospital Service in accordance with the original scheme of a study of "infections and contagious disease and the exclusion of it from the country." The time was not ripe for the extended study of the causes behind disease such as several research laboratories are now engage in. These, however, take each a small part of the field and do not try to cover it all. The charge of extravagance could not now be maintained of such modest expenditures. The education of the public has advanced in these thirty years and people are now becoming interested in their own welfare.
Since the ideal potable water of the time was that clear, colorless fluid which on evaporation left no black ring of charred substance on a porcelain dish, it was naturally organic substance, always high in carbon, that was held responsible for the danger in water.
The determination of this organic matter, how its presence could be detected, the decision as to what it had to do with disease, and the method of its removal,--all these were vital topic for discussion, and the differing views were held with tenacity and fought for with an acrimoniousness, happily past.
The English work was divided into camps. The Rivers Pollution Commission, 1859-69, evolved and used the Tidy modification of the permanganate process; Dr. Frankland used the combustion method; Wanklyn, Chapman, and Smith devised the albuminoid ammonia determination as an indirect determination of the organic matter, much as the agricultural chemist uses a factor to estimate the protein from the total nitrogen.
By organic matter was indicated that which was combustible; therefore arose the term organic and volatile, which is still found in textbooks and reports.
The solid residue left on evaporation in a platinum dish, when subjected to a dull red heat lost a certain amount in weight. This might be any carbon compound or moisture still clinging, or water of crystallization, it was all counted as foreign to good water.
Then as the recognition of the part played by living organisms
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began to be suspected, there came the effort to distinguish between the proportion of carbon to nitrogen-- the ratio being 1 to 2 per cent in vegetable, 5 to 15 per cent in animal matter. For a time this held the field, until it was seen that the infinite variety of combinations between a little vegetable and much animal, and little animal and much vegetable, made exact figures of little account.
The small quantity usually present and the possible changes during concentration caused doubt as to the decisive evidence of the combustion method. The fact that many carbon compounds low in nitrogen reduced permanganate more readily than some known to be more probably dangerous, made both the Tidy and the Wanklyn processes of less convincing proof.
With the establishment of the National Board of Health in 1879-1883 the matter took again a prominent place in scientific discussion, this time naturally from a legal standpoint--When should a government prohibition be defended? The elaborate and costly investigation of this point, including animal experimentation, was one of the causes which led to the abandonment of the National Board, but the record of the experiments shows the difficulty of settling even the smallest points in organic chemistry.
The points bearing most clearly on this question were,--Is the organic matter in water deadly when injected into the circulation or when taken internally? This experimentation on animals was among the earliest made in the country, and the report of Dr. Smart's work fills 164 pages of the 1882 report.
The conclusions of Dr. J. W. Mallet were thus expressed in the report of the National Board of Health:
"Making the most liberal allowance for the imperfection of the different processes for the estimation of organic matter or its constituents, it is well worthy of notice how very small is the absolute amount of organic matter indicated as present in many of the most dangerous waters, an amount so small as to furnish important evidence against any chemical theory of the production of disease from this source, any theory based on the simple
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assumption that some of the chemical products of the decomposition of organic matter are poisonous or noxious in their effect upon the human system. Thus, if the whole of the organic carbon and nitrogen found in such waters as Nos. 35 and 36, of the highly dangerous character of which there can scarcely be a doubt, existed as strychnine, it would be necessary to drink about half a gallon of the water at once in order to swallow an average medicinal dose of the alkaloid. It is not easy to believe that the ptomaines, or any other chemical products of putrefactive change as yet observed, can posses an intensity of toxic power so very much greater than that of the most energetic of recognized poisons. While numerous facts go to support the belief that, not to the effect of any chemical substances (such effect necessarily standing in definite relation to their quantity), but to the presence of living organisms with their power of practically unlimited self-multiplication, we must in al probability look for an explanation of most, at any rate, of the mischief attributable to drinking water, it is of course possible that indirectly a large amount of organic matter in water may be more dangerous than a smaller quantity, as furnishing on a greater scale the suitable material and conditions for the development of noxious as well as harmless organisms. ...
"Frankland clearly expresses his view as to this evidence of 'previous sewage contamination' thus:
"'Large quantifies [of nitrates] convict water of previous pollution by organic matters of animal origin. They tell only of the contamination which is past; but, by inference, they also declare the probable nature of the organic matter now present. ... Whether or no the analyst should form an unfavorable opinion of the water from the amount of nitrates must depend upon the proportion of organic matter actually present, and on his confidence in the efficiency and uniform action of the purifying process.'"1
[Note 1: 1 From Supplement No. 19, National of Health Bulletin, Washington, D.C., May 27, 1882.]
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that the biological methods employed will not afford the means of deciding between a wholesome and an unwholesome natural water. Several of the waters believed to be fairly wholesome for human consumption, certainly in use for drinking purposes on a large scale, are marked 'suspicious,' while not one of the waters believed to have proved themselves pernicious when used by man are set down as 'dangerous.'
"Chemical results as to animal in contrast with vegetable organic matter in water.
"1. In general the conclusions are sustained which have been usually drawn in regard to the source or organic matter, based on the more highly nitrogenous of that from animal than that from vegetable debris. ...
Evidence afforded by chemical results as to putrescent or nonputrescent character of organic matter in water. ...
"2. On the other hand, Dr. Smart has expressed the opinion, based upon his previous extensive experience with the albuminoid-ammonia process, aside from his work it in connection with the present investigation, that gradual evolution of albuminoid ammonia indicates the presence of organic matter, whether of vegetable or animal origin, in a fresh, or comparatively fresh, condition, while rapid evolution indicates that the organic matter is in putrescent or decomposing condition. ...
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"Examination of water samples in general.
"2. ... It is very desirable that, besides examining a water in its perfectly fresh condition, samples of it should be set aside, in half-filled but close glass-stoppered bottles, for some time--say ten or twelve days--and one of these examined every day or two, so as to trace the character and extent of the changes undergone. Not only may conclusions be drawn from such a series of observations as to the general stability or decomposibility of the organic matter present, but light will be thrown upon the changes which may be expected to occur under ordinary conditions when the water is stored for use, as in cisterns, wells during periods of drought, or carelessly allowed to remain stagnant in pitches, water coolers, etc. ...
"Albuminoid-ammonia process.
"1. In order to avoid the uncertain ending of the collection of ammonia, whether 'free' or 'albuminoid,' it would be well to adopt the rule that the distillation be stopped when, and not before, the last measure of distillate collected contains less than a certain proportion--say 1 per cent--of the whole quantity of ammonia already collected. This would in many cases involve the necessity of replenishing the liquid contents of the retort with ammonia-free water."1
[Note 1: 1 From Supplement No. 19, National Board of Health Bulletin, Washington, D. C., May 27, 1882.]
Chemists generally attacked the subject of water analysis as they did that of a clay or an ore and did not consider until about 1885-90 that they were dealing with a new set of conditions.
Little progress was made until some of them accepted the theory of ionization and applied the chemistry of dilute solutions. The great advance made in the laboratory of the Massachusetts State Board of Health was the fixing of standard rules of procedure. One chemist distilled off 150 cc. for free ammonia before adding 50 cc. alkaline permanganate and distilling for albuminoid ammonia, while another added 50 cc. of the alkaline permanganate to a second portion of 500 cc. From the readings
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he obtained he subtracted the free ammonia from another portion and called the difference albuminoid ammonia. Because such results did not agree the process was condemned. In
Color
Oxygen Consumed
Loss on Ignition
all indeterminate methods absolute uniformity of procedure is necessary.
The studies made of methods of procedure resulted in certain rules as to quantities and times which allowed comparison to
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be made and which permitted a distinction between organic matter of peaty or humic origin and that in an advanced stage of decay presumably accompanied by the yet living organisms. Thus, a sewage-polluted water would show considerable organic matter, while a filtered water would not.
One of the most valuable comparisons worked out at this time is shown in the accompanying chart which is the basis on which the interpretation of color, loss on ignition or organic matter in surface waters, and oxygen consumed is made, never one alone, but the three taken together.
To-day the general opinion is that it is not organic matter as such, but organic or living forms of bacteria, protozoa, etc., and possibly some of the products of change as alkaloidal substances, which have been isolated from decomposed nitrogen substance.
These possibilities are to be kept in mind by the progressive sanitary engineer and noted in his record book for future reference, should further investigation show their importance. To prove the importance of this is for the investigators; the engineer's work is to keep an open mind. Further details will be given in laboratory directions.
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