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38
hence he uses the sensational phrase of "previous
sewage contamination"—attributing all the combined
nitrogen in water, with a small deduction for that
which may have been acquired from the atmosphere
during its fall as rain, to sewage or other such contamination;
but the phrase, as Major Bolton remarks,
is more alarming at the first glance than when
closely examined; for it really implies—not that
sewage or organic matter is contained in the water,
but that the metamorphosed elements of these matters
are present; and so they are in all the food we eat,
for the corn, the fruit, the vegetables, and even the
wine produced upon land manured with organic
matter, must contain the metamorphosed elements
thereof, and must, in the peculiar language of Dr.
Frankland, be the products of "previous sewage or
manure contamination;" but who cares for this
when the meaning of the phrase is clearly understood?
It is, however, unfortunate that the Registrar General
should continue to employ it—seeing that it is constantly
being misunderstood, and therefore creating
unnecessary alarm in the public mind. As an illustration
of this I may refer to a report of the recently
appointed medical officer of health for Lambeth,
wherein he states that the water supplied to his
district is "extensively diluted sewage." The publication
of such a statement is sure to excite the
gravest apprehension, which, as might be expected,