The Story of a Laboratory, Chapter One: The Sanitary Awakening

 

C.E.A. Winslow, a Yale professor and a major figure in the development of public health in Connecticut, calls the latter part of the 19^th century “The Great Sanitary Awakening” (Winslow, 1923).  During this time, public health practitioners came to understand the relationships between sanitary conditions (i.e., the safe disposal of sewage to avoid contaminating drinking water) and the spread of disease.  In the classic public health example, John Snow traced a London cholera epidemic to contaminated drinking water from the Broad Street pump in 1854, contributing to the development of modern epidemiology.  Disease resulting from poor sanitation came to be seen as a problem not just of the poor, but of society as a whole.  Public health pioneer Lemuel Shattuck documented disease and death rates in different locales, and attributed the differences to varying sanitary conditions, in his 1850 survey Report to the Massachusetts Sanitary Commission.  In this report, Shattuck recommended further surveys and data collection, improvement in water supply and waste disposal, studies on specific diseases such as tuberculosis and alcoholism, and education of health care providers in preventative medicine.  Widely disseminated, this became a seminal document that inspired the formation of Boards of Health and provided the framework for their first mandates (Future of Public Health, 1988).  The earliest documentation available from the Greenwich Department of Health reflects these concerns, also.  The first Annual Report of the Greenwich Board of Health in 1886 directs physicians to report cases of infectious diseases to the Board, and discusses the pros and cons of laying a new sanitary sewer in the summertime (Annual Report, 1886). This report, by the way, provoked the first criticism of the Board in the media, which would have liked to see more specifics about the sanitary conditions in the town (Greenwich Graphic, October 9, 1886). In the earliest annual report of the Health Officer of the Town of Greenwich in 1894, Leander P. Jones recommended maintenance of plumbing and sewer connections and preventing surface water from contaminating wells, encouraged cleanliness, and reminded the community that “in every way it is most essential that the public heartily cooperate with the Health Officer” (Annual Report, 1894).

The first laboratories focused primarily on water system sanitation.  W. T. Sedgewick of Massachusetts identified fecal bacteria as the cause of typhoid fever in 1891, and developed the first sewage treatment techniques (Sedgewick, 1895).  He also performed research on milk, and advocated its sterilization and safe handling (Sedgewick 1897).  In the environs of Greenwich, the earliest documented laboratory activity was in 1889, when scientists from the laboratory of the Connecticut State Board of Health in New Haven (Foote, 1939) conducted a survey of fifteen drinking water reservoirs at various locations throughout the state.  The closest one to Greenwich was Trinity Lake in Pound Ridge, NY, which supplied the water for Stamford (Williston, 1891).

By 1909 the Greenwich Water Company was supplying distribution water to Greenwich and Port Chester, NY.  Distribution water is drinking water distributed to homes from a central location, as opposed to water from individual wells.  The water for distribution was impounded in a reservoir and run by mechanical pressure through filters in a filter house.  It was treated with alum (sodium potassium salt mixture) to precipitate colloidal particles and clarify the water. It was filtered through sand (to remove floating debris) and ground coke (taste and odor molecules would adsorb onto the surface of the carbon of the coke and be removed from the water).  It was then chlorinated to kill bacteria.

Monthly analyses of the water were performed by James A. Newlands at the laboratory of the Connecticut State Board of Health.  Newlands tested the water for physical parameters such as color, odor and turbidity, various nitrogen compounds which would give an idea of how likely the water was to support the growth of algae, oxygen demand, chlorine content, alkalinity and hardness.  He measured bacteria by culturing them, i.e., growing them in an incubator on plates containing gelatin or agar, and observing the number and type of bacteria colonies that grew.  He also calculated the percentage of bacteria that produced gas in dextrose or lactose bile broth, which would indicate the presence of coliform bacteria associated with sewage contamination (NY State Dept. of Health, 1910).  The authors of a 1910 report on this water supply system stated that the high turbidity in the finished water meant that the filters were not working very well.  They also noted that the water in the reservoirs developed a bad odor and taste in July, August, and September (NY State Dept. of Health, 1910). Today the Greenwich Department of Health Laboratory performs monthly analyses of raw water from Mianus Pond, a potential emergency water supply source, as well as water from the town distribution system and private wells.  Typical results from Mianus Pond are comparable to the results for the raw water reported in 1909, but the finished potable water is much clearer and cleaner now, with fewer bacteria present.