"Till taught by pain, men really know not what good water's worth." So said Byron in his book 'Don Juan'. His poetic insight is true. A human being does need water-under the best of circumstances, human life continues for less than twelve days without water.
Getting water should not be a problem since over 75% of the earth's surface is covered with water. In fact, it has been calculated that if the earth's solid mass were a perfect sphere, water would surround the solid surface to a depth of about 8,000 feet.
However, the human organism requires relatively pure water. The hydrologic cycle of evaporation, cloud formation, and precipitation literally rains down an average of just over half an inch of relatively pure water each week over the entire surface of the earth. But since water approaches the alchemist's dream of a universal solvent, when the rain reaches the surface of the earth, it quickly dissolves and/or transports just about every material with which it comes in contact.
"The human search for pure water supplies must have begun in prehistoric
times. Much of that earliest activity is subject to speculation. Some
individuals may have directed water where they wanted it through
trenches dug in the earth. Later a hollow log may have been used as the
first water pipe.
Thousands of years probably passed before our more recent ancestors
learned to build cities and enjoy the convenience of water piped to the
home and drains for wastes. Our earliest archeological records of
central water supply and wastewater disposal date back about 5000 years,
to Nippur of Sumeria. In the ruins of Nippur there is an arched drain
with each stone being a wedge tapering downward into place. Water was
drawn from wells and cisterns. An extensive system of drainage conveyed
the wastes from the palaces and residential districts of the city.
The earliest recorded knowledge of water treatment is in the Sanskrit
medical lore and Egyptian wall inscriptions. Sanskrit writings dating
about 2000 B.C. tell how to purify foul water by boiling in copper
vessels, exposure to sunlight, filtering through charcoal, and cooling
in an earthen vessel.
There is nothing concerning water treatment in the biblical sanitary and
hygienic code of the early Hebrews, although three incidents may be
cited as examples of the importance of fresh water. At Morah, Moses is
said to have sweetened bitter waters by casting into them a tree shown
him by God. During the wandering in the wilderness, the Lord commanded
Moses to bring forth water by smiting a rock. At a much later date,
Elisha is said to have "healed unto this day" the spring water
of Jericho by casting "salt" into it.
The earliest known apparatus for clarifying liquids was pictured on
Egyptian walls in the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. The first
picture, in a tomb of the reign of Amenhotep 11 (1447-1420 B.C.),
represents the siphoning of either water or settled wine. A second
picture, in the tomb of Rameses 11 (1300-1223 B.C.), shows the use of
wick siphons in an Egyptian kitchen. In the eighth century A.D., an
Arabian alchemist, Geber, wrote a rather specialized dissertation on
distillation that included various stills for water and other
liquids.
The English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon wrote of his experiments on
the purification of water by filtration, boiling, distillation, and
clarification by coagulation. This work was published in 1627, one year
after his death. Bacon also noted that clarifying water tends to improve
health and increase the pleasure of the eye."
The first known illustrated description of sand filters was published in
1685 by Luc Antonio Porzio, an Italian physician. He wrote a book on
conserving the health of soldiers in camps, based on his experience in
the Austro-Turkish War. This was probably the earliest published work on
mass sanitation. He described and illustrated the use of sand filters
and sedimentation. Porzio also stated that his filtration method was the
same as that of "those who built the Wells in the Palace of the
Doges in Venice and in the Palace of Cardinal Sachett, at
Rome".
The oldest known archeological examples of water filtration are in
Venice and the colonies it occupied. The ornate heads on the cisterns
bear dates, but it is not known when the filters were placed. Venice,
built on a series of islands, depended on catching and storing rainwater
for its principal freshwater supply for over 1300 years. Cisterns were
built, and many were connected with sand filters. The rainwater ran off
the house tops to the streets, where it was collected in stone-grated
catch basins and then filtered through sand into cisterns.(1)" "The cisterns
were usually 10-12 ft deep. The earth was first excavated to the shape
of a truncated inverted pyramid. Clay was placed against the sides of
the pit. A flat stone was placed in the bottom and a cylindrical wall
was built from brick laid with open joints. The space between the clay
walls and the central brick cylinder was filled with sand. The stone
surfaces of the courtyards were sloped toward the cistern, where
perforated stone blocks collected the water at the lowest point and
discharged it to the filter sand. This water was always fresh and cool,
with a temperature of about 52 degrees F. These cisterns continued to be
the principal water supply of Venice until about the sixteenth
century.
Many experiments were conducted in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries in England, France, Germany, and Russia. Henry Darcy patented
filters in France and England in 1856 and anticipated all aspects of the
American rapid-sand filter except coagulation. He appears to be the
first to apply the laws of hydraulics to filter water. The first to
supply filtered water to a whole town was completed at Glasgow, Scotland
in 1807.(2)"
In 1815, on the eve of Waterloo, John Doulton was taken into partnership
by the widow Martha Jones who had inherited from her late husband a
pottery in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth, by the side of the Thames. John
Doulton founded his first pottery in 1815 at Lambeth, England on the
banks of the Thames river. The main products of the original company
were ceramic busts, figurines, canning jars and tableware. Influenced by
the unrelenting progress of the Industrial Revolution, Doulton placed
equal emphasis on industrial applications for ceramic technology. It was
John Doulton's son, Henry, however, who carried that tradition of the
Lambeth pottery to its zenith.
As early as 1827, Henry Doulton developed ceramic filters for removing bacteria from drinking water. "Offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination and destructive to the health." This was how London drinking water, which was drawn from the Thames, was described in a pamphlet published in 1827. The Thames was heavily contaminated with raw sewage; cholera and typhoid epidemics were rampant. The first Doulton¨ water filters were made using various earth and clay materials. By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne, Doulton was established as a manufacturer of domestic and industrial products in a fine stoneware body that bore comparison with any in Europe.
In 1835, Queen Victoria recognized the present health dangers in her drinking water and commissioned Doulton to produce a water filter for the Royal household. Doulton created a gravity fed stoneware filter that combined the technology of a ceramic filter with the artistry of a hand crafted pottery water container. By 1846, the Lambeth factory was in the vanguard of the revolution in sanitation which Chadwick and the great reformers of the day brought to metropolitan England. Without the hard work and foresight of Henry Doulton that revolution would have been best delayed by decades.
Henry Doulton introduced the Doulton¨ Manganous Carbon water filter in 1862, the same year that Louis Pasteur's experiments with bacteria conclusively exploded the myth of Spontaneous Generation and proved that all microorganisms arise from other microorganisms. .
This more advanced understanding of bacteria made it possible to direct Research and Development efforts to the creation of a porous ceramic capable of filtering out these tiny organisms. With Pasteur's advancement in microbiology, Doulton's Research and Development department, headed by Henry Doulton, created micro porous ceramic (diatomaceous earth) cartridges capable of removing bacteria with better than 99% efficiency. These were rapidly adopted by the military, Crown Agents, hospitals, laboratories and domestic users throughout the world. In 1862, Doulton filters shown at the Kensington International Exhibition proudly wore the Royal arms of Queen Victoria.
In 1882 Henry Doulton acquired a small factory in the Midlands, motherland of the Staffordshire potteries and the home of the Doulton Drinking Water Purifier. By 1901, King Edward VII knighted Henry Doulton and in 1902 King Edward VII conferred the double honour of the royal warrant and the specific - as opposed to the assumed - right to use the title "Royal" for his work on drinking water filtration. This Royal Warrant authorized the company to use the word ROYAL in reference to its products. Honors were won at the great international exhibitions at Chicago and Paris and the range of products proliferated. Queen Victoria bestowed upon Doulton the right to embellish each of its units with the ROYAL CREST.
In 1906, Doulton introduced a filter that proved to be equal to the one Louis Pasteur had developed in France. It was rapidly adopted by hospitals, laboratories and for use in domestic water filtration throughout the world. The popularity and effectiveness of even the early 20th century designs has resulted in their continued use in world wide. The range and efficiency of Doulton¨ domestic water filters has been widely extended over the years to meet the demands of increasingly sophisticated uses. Doulton¨ ceramics are now in use in over 150 countries.
In 1985 the British Berkefeld® brand was acquired by Doulton Industrial Products, the manufacturer of Royal Doulton¨ water filters, a company whose name has been synonymous with high quality and reliability since the early years of the twentieth century. Today the British Berkefeld® name is the preferred choice for water purification products in world-wide locations where outbreaks of illness are associated with unreliable water supplies.
Water Contamination in Modern Times
Potential water pollutants are more numerous and varied than you might think. For ease in discussing them, they can be classified as:
Biological Contaminants -
These are parasites, bacteria, viruses, or other undesirable living microorganisms that enter the water mainly via human sewage and proliferate to levels that can cause disease when ingested through drinking water.
Inorganic Chemicals -
Chemicals that occur naturally but have been mined, processed, refined, and concentrated by man, to the point where they have become contaminants. Examples include: cyanide, fluoride, and heavy metals like lead.
Radioactive Elements -
They exist in nature at low levels, but nuclear power plants and military installations are responsible for adding additional radioactivity, often at higher levels than are found naturally in waterways.
Fertilizers -
Nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural fertilizers and sewage are plant nutrients that cause an overabundance of bacteria and algae in lakes when high amounts of this "food" are available. Nitrate (nitrogen) in particular is a potential problem in drinking water.
Synthetic Organic Chemicals (SOCs) -
Chemists define an organic chemical as one that contains carbon. This can be a bit confusing because many people associate the word "organic" with nature or natural products. This is partly true. Organic chemicals are everywhere in nature, trees, plant life, soils, and in humans. Interaction of these chemicals are the basic processes of life and the life cycle. Synthetic organic chemicals are those which are created by man in the laboratory. The bottom line is that both natural and manmade chemicals contain carbon. However, many of those synthesized by man are dangerous pollutants and have no place or niche in waterways or any other part of the environment. They are foreign to nature and are a serious potential detriment to it, humans included. Seriously damaging health effects have been linked to many SOCs. Examples of familiar SOCs include: industrial solvents, like TCE; pesticides, like DDT; PCBs,- and dioxins.
Several constituents or physical properties of water are also helpful in understanding some aspects of water pollution. A brief discussion of each now will be helpful and act as a point of reference:
Acidity and pH -
The pH of water is easily determined by dipping pH paper into the water and observing a color change, or by use of a pH meter in the laboratory. The pH of water will indicate how acidic or alkaline the water is. A pH scale of 0 to 14 is used to indicate the varying degrees of acidity, with 7 being neutral. Anything below 7 is acidic, anything above is alkaline. So the lower the pH, the higher the acidity. Water that is acidic is no problem in itself. The problem is that the more acidic the water, the more corrosive it is. Corrosive water strips household plumbing of metals like lead which can cause serious health effects.
Turbidity -
Turbid water contains suspended particles to the extent that it becomes cloudy and interferes with the ability of light to pass through the water. The suspended particles associated with turbidity are due to natural silt, clay, soil, decaying vegetation, microorganisms, and industrial waste discharge. One of the main problems with turbidity is the fact that toxic chemicals discharged into waterways often attach to these suspended particles.
Hardness -
Hard water contains a high amount of
calcium, magnesium, or iron in addition to other minerals. Problems with
hard water have traditionally been economic or aesthetic, such as the
reduction in the cleansing power of soap and the build up of scale in
hot water heaters, boilers, and hot water pipes. However, while many
seek to remove these minerals by softening their drinking water, an
increasing pool of evidence points to the lack of mineral availability
as contributing to certain health effects.
(1) W. Viessman, Jr., M.J. Hammer, Water Supply and Pollution Control, 7th Edition, (New Jersey: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2005), 1-2
(2) Ibid, 2-3