DISEASE MICROBES AND THE CHICAGO CANAL.

DISEASE MICROBES AND THE CHICAGO CANAL.

PROFESSOR EDWIN O. JORDAN, bacteriologist to the university of Chicago, insists that St. Louis need stand in no dread of any pollution of its source of water supply by the Chicago drainage canal, inas much as the dilution of its waters with so large a body of water as the Mississippi river and the great distance (over 300 miles) in which the sewage of Chicago will have time to clear itself will render it harmless before it reaches the other city. That the professor, however, is not perfectly at ease on the subject is shown by his admission, that a thoroughgoing chemical and bacteriological examination, both before and after, is the only way by which the questions relating to the public health can be satisfactorily and conclusively answered. If it should be found on impartial inquiry, after the canal has been put into operation, that danger, inconvenience, and loes are resulting to other communities, ways must be found to remedy these difficulties.

但对于圣Loui的公民s to acquiesce in this theory is to establish a vicious principle—one too commonly followed out in these days—that of first polluting the source of water supply, and inquiring afterwards, when, perhaps, it will be too late to remedy the evil, or after many valuable lives have been lost and many persons have been stricken down by disease. It may be as Prof. Jordan prophesies and, again, it may not. Experience, however, has proved that, whatever the theories of a few years ago, it needs a much longer distance than was formerly held to be necessary before such pollution as is conveyed by sewage can be done away with; and it would seem as if this were particularly the case with the waters of the Chicago drainage canal, which in reality form a comparatively slowly moving and huge volume of filth, each fluid ounce of which may teem with pathogenic germs. Of this danger there have been numerous instances, and the stupid and careless disposition of the wastes of mills. mines, and sewage has been the fruitful source of disease to an unnumbered and innumerable multitude. It is through the selfishness of others that streams have been turned into sewers, and however selfish it may seem to be for other cities lying further down the course of the stream to take extreme measures against the polluters of their sources of water supply, such so-called selfishness is not only justifiable, but absolutely of obligation on those whose health and very lives are endangered. Such objectors are well within their rights, and St. Louis would act wisely in insisting that Prof. Jordan’s suggestion be acted upon at once, and immediate steps be taken to test the waters of the Mississippi, now that they have been subjected for so long a time to the influence of the unsavory contents of the Chicago drainage canal.