Issue No. 609
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24 - 30 October 2002 Issue No. 609 Chronicles |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Al-Ahram: A Diwanof contemporary life (465)
Cheap clean water
In September 1930 readers of Al-Ahram received news of a scientific method that would miraculously make clean drinking water available to all Egyptians at little cost. Professor Yunan Labib Rizk* follows the arguments of the inventors of this new method and their detractors
On 5 September 1930 Al-Ahram carried to its readers the good news that the shortage of potable water, long a nightmare for the majority of people in rural Egypt, was about to be solved. It was the subject of an editorial entitled: "Potable water in Egypt before food. Health and labour are the capital assets of this nation. Safeguard our capital."
Click to view captionShahin Pasha, Nile water is central to Egyptians' lives 
The article reminded readers of Lord Milner's warning of the peril that loomed over Egypt. Firstly, educated farmers and their children were spurning agriculture as a lowly occupation. Secondly, those who did farm were frail due to illnesses caused by the excess humidity in the earth following the conversion from seasonal to perennial irrigation and from drinking polluted water.
As one Upper Egyptian landowner, cited in the article, put it: "the conversion to perennial irrigation has led to the spread of bilharzia and other diseases in Upper Egypt to such an extent that the vigorous and sturdy peasants who worked untiringly day and night have grown gaunt and feeble having been afflicted with the above mentioned diseases that lurk in the stagnant brackish waters in irrigation and drainage canals."
The same issue included a letter to the editor from a reader who expressed his horror at a sight he beheld from the window of a train travelling from Cairo to Alexandria. "I saw a group of peasant women filling jars with water from the canal after which I saw a fellah swimming and another wading. More appalling yet, there was a water buffalo wallowing in that canal!"
The above-mentioned editorial cited a staggering statistic: some 92 per cent of farmers in the Delta were infected by diseases related to waterborne parasites and pollutants. The author could not help but scoff at the paltry efforts of the Ministry of Health and other government agencies which were generally limited to placing warnings in the press cautioning fellahin against drinking and bathing in stagnant waters. If the fellahin heeded these cautions -- supposing they could even read them -- then where are they supposed to find water they can drink and bathe in, he asked. He continues, two years earlier the government had the inspiration to commission a foreign expert to study the problem of potable water. "The man submitted his report and collected his fee. He concluded that it would take LE15 million to make potable water available throughout the country. Then nothing more was heard."
Against this background, the newspaper announced that "the eminent physician Ismail Bek Murtada has submitted a proposal to Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sidqi Pasha concerning a solution to the water problem." And, perhaps to add weight to the petition, Al-Ahram established the credentials of the man who drafted it.
Ismail Bek Murtada "has long been involved in the process of scientific discovery and availing his country with its benefits. He was the first Egyptian physician to introduce insulin in the treatment of diabetes, even before Germany, France, Italy and many other European countries did so. He was also the first Egyptian to found a hospital in England and the only Egyptian physician to be appointed by the British Health Department as a county health inspector. He is a source of pride to his cherished nation, Egypt."
In his proposal, Murtada announced that his concern for endemic diseases among peasants inspired him to discover a simple, practical and inexpensive way to purify water. Through extensive research and experimentation, he succeeded along with a foreign colleague of his, a specialist in chemistry called Dr Silbermann, in creating an agent that would "render water clear and pure of all harmful pollutants and suitable for all aspects of the lives of those who drink it."
His discovery had numerous advantages. It dispensed with the need for purification plants and costly equipment; for all that was required were basins with a capacity to serve the inhabitants of a particular locale. This spared the costs of personnel, repair and maintenance. Simultaneously, all the necessary substances were readily available in Egypt. Finally, the process was equally adaptable to all villages regardless of their size.
Al-Ahram welcomed Murtada's proposal enthusiastically. However, it was apprehensive it would meet the same fate as the report of the foreign expert two years previously. The newspaper had learned that Sidqi had forwarded Murtada's proposal to Director of Public Health Shahin Pasha who, in turn, formed a committee to study it. The writer of the editorial prayed the proposal would not meet a premature death there.
Perhaps such misgivings are what prompted the newspaper to campaign for "clean water for the fellahin", beneath which heading it gave considerable play to Murtada's and Silbermann's discovery. An Al-Ahram correspondent boasts that he had seen the process for himself in a demonstration the two scientists held before an audience of intellectuals and physicians. He reports that one of the two men filled two pails with water from the Nile. In one of these pails he poured some of the chemical substance they had created and after a certain time elapsed he extracted a cup full. The water in it was "pure and translucent, the silt having settled to the bottom of the pail, contrary to the water in the other pail which was as murky as before. As the two inventors drank from the purified water they assured their audience that it was entirely free of microbes and tasted better than the water produced by companies in the major capitals."
With the same ardour, the reporter proceeds to relay Murtada's vision for water purification in the countryside. On the outskirts of every village there would be a large basin filled with water treated with a quantity of Murtada's chemical substance. After a while silt, suspended impurities and microorganisms settle leaving the water clear and pure. "Thus, potable water can be made easily available without cost or hardship." An important advantage of this method was that it did not require teams of technical experts. All that was needed was a small village council would be charged with mediating with health officials. "Indeed, it is sufficient to entrust the matter to the village mayor, sheikh or chief sentinel as no hazard is involved."
The writer could not stress enough the urgency of a country- wide project based on Murtada's proposal. While no more than two million city dwellers had access to potable water the rest of the Egyptian people, which he estimated at between 14 to 15 million, continued to drink water "in need of purification of the harmful microbes that cause fatal diseases". Upon enquiring whether Sidqi had met with the director of public health and agreed to put the proposal into effect the reporter learned that the meeting had taken place and that "Shahin jumped for joy at the project and immediately referred it to the special committee for matters related to potable water."
If there was anything that could dampen exultation over Murtada's discovery at the time it was the prospect of costs. It was common knowledge that the strains of global repression meant that the government had to keep very tight purse strings. However, as Murtada was quick to point out, his method did not require the filtration process used in urban water purification plants or highly-paid technicians -- nor did it require expensive tanks or other equipment. "The saving will be immense, since the costs of the project are too paltry as to merit mention," Murtada told the Al-Ahram correspondent.
The correspondent countered with a pertinent question: did the chemical substances used in the purification process have to be imported? The scientist acknowledged that for the moment they did, but insisted that they were not expensive. At the same time, he said that it was possible to obtain them from Egypt proper, which would cost far less than importing them. He further claimed that "preparing this chemical substance in Egypt will generate a boon for other domestic industries and augment the sources of wealth for our cherished country. It will be possible, for example, to produce sodium hydroxide, which is the backbone of many industries our nation currently does not possess due to the lack of this substance."
As though it felt readers were still not content enough with these assurances, Al-Ahram dispatched a correspondent to interview Dr Silbermann. The interview appeared on the front page of the newspaper's edition of 8 September.
The "expert chemist" accorded even greater emphasis to the economic advantages of the "Murtada-Silbermann invention" than his colleague the "master physician" "The government can earn LE1.5 million per year if it adopts this method to purify water. And, if it sells its distilled water at the same price charged by the companies in Europe its earnings can climb to LE7 million. Moreover, if the government works to implement this project in all villages, even while importing the necessary chemical substance abroad, the cost would not exceed a tenth of a piastre per person per month -- a price barely worth mentioning. Like his colleague, Silbermann also stressed the boost the water project would give to Egyptian industry and employment.
In view of the enthusiastic build-up Al-Ahram accorded to the Murtada-Silbermann discovery, Al-Ahram readers must have been impatient to see the dream come true. Sensing this, the newspaper had its reporters track down the progress being made on the project now that it had entered the bowels of bureaucracy.
On 9 September, the Al-Ahram correspondent in Alexandria reports that he had secured an interview with Shahin who was vacationing in the port city that summer. The comments of the Director of Public Health were not reassuring. No progress had been made on the project so far, he told Al-Ahram, because most of the members on the committee that was studying it were on holiday and he could take no decisions on the matter without consulting them. In addition, the inventors had given him to understand that they were interested in the commercial prospects of their project. "This requires the explication of issues and details that were not included in the report to the minister," he said. Shahin also insisted that the scientists stage a demonstration of their work in a special laboratory. "Experts and specialists from water companies and the government and other scientists must be invited to observe the process and its results. Then, once the experts have testified to the advantages of the project it will be easy to put it into effect," he argued.
In Cairo, another reporter took Shahin's statements to Murtada and asked him to comment on them. He vehemently denied that he and his colleague had considered taking advantage of the project for personal gain. He said that when he and his colleague went to meet the deputy minister of interior for health, they put to him the name of a company that might invest in the project to the benefit of all. "However, it never once occurred to us to put this substance so vital to the welfare of the nation in the hands of a foreign monopoly. Therefore, you can see that I am shocked that His Excellency Shahin got the impression that our project was purely commercial, when all we wanted was for him to give us his opinion on the purely technical aspects of the project."
Murtada went on to explain that he and his colleague had initially rejected the idea of conducting a demonstration of their process before experts in Egypt. They had already presented their project to the most fastidious specialists "and we feared that in asking for these demonstrations His Excellency would create confusion that would influence the technicians before they issued their opinion." Nevertheless, he added that he and his colleague were now prepared to conduct the required demonstration.
If sluggish bureaucracy and such signs of tension had begun to cause hopes to flag, that would be nothing compared to the effect of a certain letter to the editor. The letter, which appeared on the front page of the 22 November issue, was signed "A M H, Municipal Engineer." The writer expressed his regret that the Ministry of Health had not approved of the Murtada-Silbermann project in principle. In the opinion of the department, he learned, the project was not feasible. "The quantities of water used must be very small and if only a small time elapses without stirring the water after the proposed chemical substance is added, the substance will lose its efficacy."
The municipal engineer was clearly abreast of the subject matter. Not all such inventions were practical. Some European municipalities had introduced the use of ultraviolet rays to purify water; however, when this proved impractical they ceased this method. The solution, in his opinion, was to design "rural filtration plants that will accommodate to the necessary economic, hygiene and engineering considerations". He adds, "This project should receive the full participation of doctors and engineers in view of the vital importance of supplying villages with purified water."
Before publishing this letter, Al-Ahram dispatched a reporter to show it to Murtada and then published his response alongside it. The scientist, first, expressed his suspicions about the signature: "I do not understand the reasons why the writer had not made his full name public, since the subject he discussed is crucial to the utmost extent." Naturally, he was extremely dismayed by the substance of the letter. If his discovery had been made in any country in Europe, "it would have been greeted by writers, the press, parliament, official agencies, all classes of people and businessmen in a manner that would have accorded it the study and consideration it merits."
He went on to express his doubts that the Health Department had actually turned his project down. A decision of such importance could not be made with the mere stroke of a pen after only cursory examination. While he admitted that the department was not well enough equipped to conduct the appropriate study, he nevertheless charged that "the success that resulted when experiments were performed on small quantities of water do not uphold the conclusions of the critic."
On 10 December, Al-Ahram featured a full-length article by "the critic", who, on this occasion, revealed that his name was Ahmed Mohamed Hamdi and his occupation: "an engineer engaged in water works, in theoretical and practical capacities, for nine years, after having specialised in this subject in university". He continues, "I have had the good fortune to visit most water plants in England, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, as a delegate for the Ministry of Public Works. I have also worked in the Health Department laboratories on the analysis of water. I have thus been able to form a rudimentary idea about your project."
It did not necessarily follow that experiments conducted successfully on small quantities of water would succeed with large quantities, Hamdi argued. He then asked whether Murtada had "conducted the experiment on a quantity of water that would be consumed by even the smallest village and seen with absolute certainty, that it succeeded, both with regard to the efficacy of the chemical substance and the technical and hygienic aspects of the design."
More significantly, the municipal engineer maintained that the chemical substance Murtada and Silbermann had discovered was not new. "As a hygiene engineer with experience in water purification," he wrote, "I know with absolute certainty that numerous similar compounds, such as aluminum sulfate, iron sulfate, iron chlorate, iodine and permanganate of potassium, have been used to purify water. However, these compounds are only used in the preliminary process of purification and sedimentation. What is needed in order to remove all suspended particles and remaining impurities, so as to render water absolutely pure and translucent, are filters. It is surprising that the honourable inventor claimed it is possible to remove all impurities from water using solely the chemical substance he invented, for this conflicts with all the research and opinion conducted by technical experts in Europe and the US."
Hamdi then threw down the gauntlet. Like Shahin before him, he asked Murtada to demonstrate his method in front of experts. This was to ensure that "certain futile, perverse conclusions do not take hold before he goes running to His Majesty and getting entrepreneurs, government agencies and parliament into a flurry of agitation."
The following day -- 11 December -- Al-Ahram published the lengthy response of Dr Ismail Murtada. In the most indignant tones, the scientist sought to refute the municipal engineer's allegations. Charging that Hamdi had misunderstood the nature of his water purification process; that it entailed only one phase instead of two. This, however, was "a complete delusion, contrary to the facts". Rather, "our method was not restricted solely to the discovery of elements to render water clear, it also comprised the use of disinfectants to cleanse it of harmful microbes, to which the laboratories of the Department of Health have testified."
Murtada also took exception to the offhand manner in which Hamdi referred to the king; he should have been "more delicate". Murtada did not "go running to", but rather he had appealed to His Majesty "because he is the supreme guardian of all reforms that have blessed this country, because His Majesty is dedicated to the advancement, welfare and prosperity of his people, because His Majesty holds the greatest esteem for scientific discoveries and inventions when they indicate that they will have far-reaching benefits, which is the case with our current project."
Murtada's tactic of attempting to turn authorities' sympathies against the municipal engineer indicated the weakness of his position. Indeed, it seems that he had thrown in the towel altogether, as Al-Ahram carried no further letters from him or news of his project. If, with this, the hopes of the Egyptian people and Al- Ahram for an inexpensive way of providing cheap water to the countryside had suffered a severe setback, they must have recognised that arguments of the municipal engineer were more effective than the invention of the two scientists.
* The author is a professor of history and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.
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