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Show Artificial Light Useful as Gerrojcide. It is well known that sunlight possesses pos-sesses germicidal properties, but it has not been thought possible to rival these with any artificial source of light. It now appears, however, that these properties prop-erties are due chiefly, not to the visible, but to the ultra-violet, rays, and that artificial light sources rich in these rays may also be fatal to bacteria, and hence useful as germicides, says the Literary Digest. For instance, Messrs. Jules Courmont and T. Nogier have just reported to the Paris Academy of Sciences Sci-ences that drinking water may be easily sterilized by the use of the quartz mercury mer-cury vapor electric lamp. Says the Revue Scientifique in a brief report: "By means of the Kromayer lamp (four amperes and 135 volts), the authors au-thors have obtained an intense bactericidal bacteri-cidal power in water 0.3 meters (about a foot) from the lamp. The sterilization steriliza-tion is complete, embracing all the ordinary ordi-nary microbes of water, the colibacillus, colibacil-lus, Kberth's bacillus, etc.. at the end of one or two minutes, even when the water is etremely foul, naturally or artificially. ar-tificially. .The water must be clear, however. "The use of the quartz mercury vapor va-por lamp may thus enter Into industrial practice in the sterilization of clear drniking waters. It will be sufficient to arrange the lamps either in a reservoir or in a water main, at suitable distances, dis-tances, so that the water will be illuminated il-luminated for one or two minutes." |