Overview

"As featured on the PBS series ""How We Got to Now"" Perhaps no other advancement of public health has been as significant. Yet, few know the intriguing story of a simple idea–disinfecting public water systems with chlorine–that in just 100 years has saved more lives than any other single health development in human history. At the turn of the 20th century, most scientists and doctors called the addition of chloride of lime, a poisonous chemical, to public water supplies not only a preposterous idea but also an illegal act – until a courageous physician, Dr. John L. Leal, working with George W. Fuller, the era’s greatest sanitary engineer, proved it could be done safely and effectively on a large scale. This is the first book to tell the incredible true story of the first use of chlorine to disinfect a city water supply, in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1908. This important book also corrects misinformation long-held in the historical record about who was responsible for this momentous event, giving overdue recognition to the true hero of the story–an unflagging champion of public health, Dr. John L. Leal. Download excerpt"

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9781583219133

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McGuire takes us down the long road to safeguard our water supply at the beginning of the twentieth century and does it with clear and engaging prose that lay readers can understand. Penelope Grenoble, Editor, Source magazine

From its 1908 beginnings, the history of drinking water chlorination is a compelling subject with controversy that surprises the modern reader. This thorough but accessible science-history book provides the dramatic details on the reduction of waterborne illness and how the most significant public health advance of the millennium came to pass.

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