NOT A GUARANTEE OF PURITY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 40, 4 October 1890, Page 14

NOT A GUARANTEE OF PURITY.

It is the custom to believe that the most impure water will be rendered pure by boiling, and that an absolute safeguard against the danger of water containing disease germs is thus afforded. While it is true that boiling will kill the germs of disease, yet the fact has been pointed out by the very highest authority that while boiling kills the germs of a particular disease, it yet, in reality, renders the water more impure than it was before, because by the very death of these germs, dead organic matter is allowed to remain in the water, which is shoitly polluted by putrefaction. Hence, while boiling is a most excellent precaution against the occurrence of typhoid fever or similar diseases it must lie borne in mind that the water is not necessarily purified, but that simply the power to produce a specific disease is removed.