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Show I Another Chicago "Discovery." The City Health Officer again warns the public against drinking unboiled lake water. There has been an in-J in-J crease of typhoid fever of late in this I city, where that disease is always dls- ' I quictlngly and discreditably prevalent, ( and It is believed that the situation has been made worse by the recant Ihaws and floodf, by which a great mass of filth has been swept into the lake from i which the water supply is drawn, i But can it be that the Health Oflicer I and most of the accepted authorltLs are mistaken? Is it possible that sewage, sew-age, so far from propagating and multiplying multi-plying typhoid germs, actually destroys them? He would be a bold man who j asserted so, and his reputation for san- i ity might suffer, yet such a one can be I found, and found in the place where I one would naturally look for him; , namely, in the University of Chicago. ! The interstate canal case is now on trial in Chicago. The other day Prof. I Edwin O. Jordan of the biological de partment of President Harper's institution insti-tution was on the witness-stand. The professor testified to the discovery recently re-cently made by him that typhoid germ3 will not live above two days In sewage-polluted sewage-polluted water, and will not live moro than ten days in ordinary pure water; moreover, the fact that the water Is polluted with oewage is in itself a positive aid to the purification of the water from typhoid germs. Of course, this upsets all hitherto accepted theories theo-ries and destroys the long-cherished be-I be-I lief that typhoid germs can be carried a long distance in running water. St. , l.oute need now have no fear of drink- I Ing1 the water brought down through the Chicago drainage canal, and the more i, Chicago drinks of her own sewage the bqtter off she will be This will be good news to Clevelanders. t This expert witness leaves himself i, open to the claim of proving too much. If sewage, as he declares, is a pre-I pre-I ventlve of typhoid fever and a destroyer of germs, why should the lake cities not secure immunity by revelling In their own sewage Instead of drawing rela- i lively pure water from farther out In I the lakes, where the pesky germs will live five times as long and be at least ' five times as perniciouH as in the water ; nearer shore? Prof. Jordan seems to have lit upon a prophylactic for ty- phold. The scourge will no longer lurk j in a well or reservoir when it can be ! i eliminated by turning in a stream from j ' the nearest sewer. It is simplicity it-U it-U V. ielf. Here seems to be the long-sought & V, means of combating this fearful I scourge, Cleveland Plain Dealer. |