River Pollution
River Pollution is a scholarly work, published in 1929 in ''The BMJ''. The main subjects of the publication include environmental science, geography, -, water quality, environmental protection, and pollution. THERt mlust he very few mnedical m11en1 who lhave niot at one timiie or anotlher had their attenitioii drawni to the pollute(l conidition of ouir rivers, but thiere are fewer still who can reiimeber thie foulliess of some of the streams in the authors' industrial areas thirtv or forty year-s ago, when little had been done to cheek their pollution.To give some picture of the coniditions of the streamiis at that timo, I cannot do better than repeat the often quLoted paragraph in the report, of the Roval Commiiiiission of 1865 (pages x and xi):The Rivers Aire and Calder tllrougliouit tlheir whole course are abused, obstructed, and polluted (to an extent scarcely conceivable by other tlhan eye-witnesses) from Skipton on the Aire, from Todmorden oni the Calder down to Castleford.The Rivers Aire and Calder, and their tributaries, are abused by passing into them huindreds of thousands of tons per annum of ashes, slag, and cinders from steam-boiler furnaces, ironworks, and domestic fires; by their being made a receptacle to a vast extent of broken pottery and worn-out utensils of metal, refuse brick from brick- yards and old buildings, earth, stone, and clay from quarries and excavations, road scrapings, street sweepings, etc.; by spent dyewoods and other solids used in the treatment of worsteds and woollens; by hundreds of carcasses of animals, as dogs, cats, pigs, etc., which are allowed to float on the surface of the streams or putrefy on their banks; and by the flowing in, to the amount of very 'many million gallons per day, of water poisoned, cor- rupted, and clogged by refuse from mines, chemical works, dyeing, scouring, and fulling worsted and woollen stuffs, skin cleaning and tanning, slaughterhouse garbage, and the sewage of towns and liouses."This description of the Rivers Aire and Calder may be said to apply, with more or less accuracy, to many of the streams in the industrial areas, particularly in Yorkshire anid Lancashire.