November 13, 2017 Monday
Bedtime Story
The Varanasi Connection
Varanasi, like most Indian cities, is an
overpopulated city of 1.5 million people that discharges on a daily basis some
200 million liters of untreated human sewage.
This act alone (besides the discharge from
industries) leads to a huge pile up of human fecal coliform bacteria that
include not only the well known E. coli but also other genera such as
Enterobacter, Klebsiella and Citrobacter.
The safe level of such fecal coliform
bacteria in natural water bodies should not exceed 500 fecal coliforms per 100
ml.
Yet the water level of such fecal coliforms
upstream of the city has already reached an astounding 60,000 fecal coliforms
per 100 ml, some 120 times the desired levels!
Back in 1896 an Englishman by the name of
Ernest Hanbury Hankin who had worked under Robert Koch for some time in Berlin
and under Louis Pasteur in Paris was posted at a Laboratory in Agra.
By training a medical doctor, he had got
interested in bacteriology by the time he passed out from medical school
somewhere around 1890.
He was a very bright medical student
passing out with first class in both parts of the Natural Science Tripos in
1888 and 1889.
In 1890 he chose pathology and was elected
Hutchinson Student of Pathology.
Now any person who is seriously interested in
studying microbes in their natural environment would find South Asia and Africa
to be fascinating laboratories.
That is why after training under best minds
of Europe he decided to take up a position in India as a Chemical Examiner,
Government Analyst and Bacteriologist for the United Provinces, Punjab and
Central Provinces.
India then as today was ridden with
tropical diseases and cholera then was a major issue that Hankin took up to
study.
He published papers and demonstrated to the
natives that cholera was caused by microbes and boiling water before drinking
renders it safe.
In 1896 he published a paper through his
former alma mater, the Pasteur Institute, titled ‘L’action bactericide des eaux
de la Jumna et du Gange sur le vibrion du Cholera’.
It is not that difficult to translate this
into English.
The paper in English would read as –
Bactericidal action of the waters of Jamuna and Ganges on Vibrio cholerae.
In the paper, he made the following
observations:
“It is seen that the unboiled water of the
Ganges kills the cholera germ in less than 3 hours.
The same water, when boiled, does not have the
same affect.
On the other hand, well water is a good
medium for this microbe, whether boiled or filtered (very fine porcelain
filter).”
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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