Laboratory Control of Water Supplies and Sewage Treatment, in the Large Cities of the United States in 1920

Abstract

History indicates that early health workers were primarily concerned with problems related to environmental sanitation. Improvement in water supplies and sewerage systems have thus been important factors in reducing the incidence of diseases spread largely through the alvine discharges. Cholera, for example, no longer menaces millions of homes and typhoid, which formerly took a yearly toll of 20,000 lives in this country, has been nearly wiped out. The bacteriologist, the chemist and the sanitary engineer all deserve credit for important achievements in these fields. Today, city water supplies and sewerage systems are usually operated under special bureaus of the municipal government or by contract with private concerns, but the modern health officer maintains close contact with those directly responsible for these services. He is interested in an adequate and safe water supply and studies the laboratory reports of examinations, providing facilities for regular analyses if they are not available at the plant. As problems of sewage disposal have developed, the laboratory has also become an important factor in testing the efficiency of treatment methods and establishing modern methods of sewage purification. A careful survey has recently been completed of municipal health department practice in 83 cities of 100,000 population and over in the United States.3 This study includes data concerning the laboratory control of water supplies and sewage treatment which deserve