WHAT IS PURE WATER?
It is a mistake to suppose that the purity of water depends upon the quantity of organic matter it contains. Professor Huxley gave it as his opinion, speaking as a biologist, u that a water may be as pure as can be as regards cbmyical analysis, and yet as regards the human body, be as deadly as prussic acid, and, on the other hand, may be chmyically gross and yet do no harm to anyone.” “ I am aware,” said he, “that to chyinists this is a terrible conclusion, but it is true, and if the public are guided by percentages alone they may often be led astray. The real value of a determination of the quantity of organic impurity in a water is that by it a shrewd notion can be obtained as to what has had access to that water.” It is within our knowledge, says A r c<tvre, that some of our most wholesome supplies sometimes contain an excess of organic matter, and that the waters which give rise to typhod fever and other hardly less serious disorders arc frequently just those which contain the least, the difference, of course, being that in the one case the organic matter is innocuous, in the other deadly.
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Patea Mail, 23 October 1880, Page 4
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211WHAT IS PURE WATER? Patea Mail, 23 October 1880, Page 4
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