Excerpt from Laboratory Notes: Sanitary Chemistry and Water Analysis

The application of chemistry to problems of public health or gen eral sanitation is of comparatively recent date, and its importance can hardly be overrated from the present standpoint. Of the relation between health and the condition of air, water, and food materials as regards the action of the lower forms of life. Soil and food are the hotbeds in which these lower forms of life are propagated and from which they are carried by water and air as well as by actual contact. Sanitary biology is concerned with the organisms themselves; sanitary chemistry with the detection and interpretation of the changes which they cause in the materials in which they grow, and with the production of certain substances inimical to health.

In these notes are illustrated the more common changes which are now known to be caused by these organisms. In order to interpret correctly the results obtained, it is necessary to know the normal com position oi the materials in question. To determine this often involves analytical processes not strictly included under the head of sanitary tests, namely, the determination of total solids, ash, etc., and certain changes of sanitary significance not due to the lower forms of life, such as the vitiation of air by the burning of lights or the breathing of human beings. Sanitary chemistry may also properly include the examination of articles of food for the presence of adulterants or poisons.

It is evident that any classification of topics is only temporary and tentative in the present state of knowledge. Water analysis and air analysis are each treated in a separate section. In the' former the products of bacterial action are to be most carefully studied and accurately determined, in order that the deductions from the results may be of value. Soil analysis has been fully described in works on agricultural chemistry (see page and is therefore omitted. Food analysis is treated on the broad lines above indicated. A few typical substances only will be considered, and the methods of examination given will be such as to elucidate the scientific aspect rather than technical detail of the subject. Both on account of its importance as a food stuff and on account of its availability for the tests, milk has been chosen as a type of animal food. This classincludes meats and meat products, meat tablets, peptones, and other prepared animal foods. The same methods of examination may be applied to the analysis of fertilizers.

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