Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1875 — How Water Is Injured by Organic Matter. [ARTICLE]

How Water Is Injured by Organic Matter.

In a recent work entitled “Scientific Conversations,” by M. Forville, of Paris, the reason why organic matter becomes a dangerous constituent of water is thus set forth: How does organic matter become dangerous? We must not believe that it constitutes, as superficially said, a tonic element The phenomenon is more complex. The organic matter in suspension or in solution creates in the water a peculiar medium suitable for the development of exceedingly small beings of the genus Vibrio. It is no longer mere water —it is a world of microscopic animals and plants which are born, live and increase with bewildering rapidity. The infusoria find in the water calcarious, magnesian and ammoniacal salts, and their maintenance is thus secure. Drink a drop of this liquid and you swallow millions of minute beings. But there are vibrios and vibrios. "There are those which are capable of setting up putrefaction in our tissues. These are our enemies. Let water he placed in contact with organic remains capable of nourishing these malignant vibrios, and it at once becomes more dangerous than any poison.—Pcpuiur ScUneoMonthly. , Ohio naturalized^,Bs4 persons last year.