From historyofwaterfilters.com

Early Water Treatment
The earliest recorded attempts to find or generate pure water date back to 2000 b.c.e.. Early Sanskrit writings outlined methods for purifying water.

These methods ranged from boiling or placing hot metal instruments in water before drinking it to filtering that water through crude sand or charcoal filters (Baker & Taras, 1981). These writings suggest that the major motive in purifying water was to provide better tasting drinking water. It was assumed that good tasting water was also clean. People did not yet connect impure water with disease nor did they have the technology necessary to recognize tasteless yet harmful organisms and sentiments in water.

Centuries later, Hippocrates, the famed father of medicine, began to conduct his own experiments in water purification. He created the theory of the "four humors," or essential fluids, of the body that related directly to the four temperatures of the seasons. According to Hippocrates, in order to maintain good health, these four humors should be kept in balance. As a part of his theory of the four humors, Hippocrates recognized the healing power of water. For feverish patients, he often recommended a bath in cool water. Such a bath would realign the temperature and harmony of the four humors. Hippocrates acknowledged that the water available in Greek aqueducts was far from pure in its quality. Like the ancients before him, Hippocrates also believed good taste in water meant cleanliness and purity of that water. Hippocrates designed his own crude water filter to "purify" the water he used for his patients. Later known as the "Hippocratic sleeve," this filter was a cloth bag through which water could be poured after being boiled (Baker & Taras, 1981). The cloth would trap any sentiments in the water that were causing bad taste or smell.

Water Treatment in the Middle Ages
The ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome designed amazing aqueducts to route water pathways and provide the first municipal water systems. On the American continent, archeological evidence suggests that the ancient Mayan civilization used similar aqueduct technology to provide water to urban residents. Further advancements in water technology ended, for the most part, with the fall of these civilizations. During the Middle Ages, few experiments were attempted in water purification or filtration. Devout Catholicism throughout Europe marked this time period, often known as the Dark Ages due to the lack of scientific innovations and experiments. Because of the low level of scientific experimentation, the future for water purification and filtration seemed very dark.

The first record of experimentation in water filtration, after the blight of the Dark Ages, came from Sir Francis Bacon in 1627 (Baker & Taras, 1981). Hearing rumors that the salty water of the ocean could be purified and cleansed for drinking water purposes, he began experimenting in the desalination of seawater. Using a sand filter method, Bacon believed that if he dug a hole near the shore through which seawater would pass, sand particles (presumable heavier than salt particles) would obstruct the passage of salt in the upward passage of the water; the other side of the hole would then provide pure, salt-free water. Sadly, his hypothesis did not prove true, and Bacon was left with salty, undrinkable water. His experiment did mark rejuvenation in water filter experimentation. Later scientists would follow his lead and continue to experiment with water filtration technology.

A Great Discovery in Water Filtration History
The Renaissance period, beginning in the late fourteenth century, ended the scientific and intellectual stagnation of the Dark Ages and sparked a new period of discovery. In this period, often called the Age of Discovery, several inventions came about that greatly affected the world. Included among these inventions was the microscope, a scientific innovation that greatly affected the history of water filters.
Long before the actual use of a microscope as we know it today, people had recognized the power of concave glass to make items appear larger and to focus heat from the sun. This discovery was little used until the advent of spectacles in the mid-thirteenth century. It wasn't until the late sixteenth century that such concave pieces of glass, or "lenses" as they were called, became relevant to the history of microscopy, and, consequently, to the history of water filters. In 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers, Zaccharias Janssen and his son Hans, began experimenting with lenses in a tube and found that they could greatly magnify objects viewed through the tube (Wilson, 1995). This invention was the forerunner to modern-day telescopes and microscopes.

A century later, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, considered the father of microscopy, built upon the Janssen's simple invention. By grinding and polishing the tiny curved lenses, he was able to reach magnifications of up to 270 times the original object (Wilson, 1995). This advanced microscope had a great effect upon the study of water purity and water filtration. Scientists were now able to view tiny material particles present in water that had been presumed to be clean.

The Use of the Microscope in Water Filter History
Anton van Leeuwenhoek used his discovery of the microscope to see and describe the teeming life in a single drop of water. Robert Hooke, considered the English father of microscopy, confirmed Leeuwenhoek's descriptions of tiny, living organisms in a drop of water and further refined the microscope. Soon scientists were examining tiny particles of life they had never before seen nor known existed prior to the invention of the microscope.

The microscope has an interesting place in water filter history. In mid-19th century London, where diseases ran rampant because of the tight quarters of the working class, city officials began to link the spread of cholera to poor drinking water quality (Baker & Taras, 1981). In areas where sand water filters had been installed, the outbreak of cholera had greatly decreased. To further corroborate this conclusion, John Snow, a British scientist, was able to link several cholera deaths to water from the Broad Street Pump, a nearby water pump that had become contaminated by a leaking sewer (Baker & Taras, 1981). Using a microscope, he was able to confirm the presence of tiny cholera bacteria in the water. Ironically, this water came from a pump that had been noted throughout the city for its overall good taste and quality. This instance proved once more that the taste and visual clarity of water does not necessarily indicate purity.

As British government officials noted the effect of water quality on cholera outbreaks, both through Snow's discovery and through the evidence of decreasing cases of cholera where sand water filters had been installed, they mandated the installation of sand water filters throughout the city. This mandate was one of the first instances of government regulation of public water and would set a precedent for municipal water systems.

The Advent of Municipal Water Treatment
Long before Snow linked cholera deaths to poor water quality, people were beginning to suggest that pure water be provided to every household through some sort of citywide water filtration. The supposition that every person deserved clean water to drink and bathe in was related to the general philosophical themes of the Enlightenment period in Europe. During the Age of Enlightenment of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, philosophers ruminated over the natural rights of all humanity. The right to clean, pure water began to be associated with these innate rights of all humanity. Such philosophical discussions led the French scientist La Hire to propose that every French household have a sand water filter installed that would provide clean water to that household. Sand filters had become the most popular method of water filtration throughout many European towns.

About 100 years after La Hire first suggested that all citizens should be given the right to pure water, government officials in the United Kingdom began to wonder, also, if every household in their domain should be provided with some kind of filtered water. In 1804, the first citywide, municipal water treatment plant was installed in Paisley, Scotland (Baker & Taras, 1981). This plant would provide filtered water to every household within the city limits. The Scottish water treatment plant depended upon slow sand filters designed by Robert Thom, an important scientist of the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1827, James Simpson, an English scientist, created a similar design to Thom's, and the Simpson water filter models were soon implemented in municipal water treatment plants throughout England.

The slow sand water filters designed by Thom and Simpson were very large and required frequent and extensive cleaning. Because of the growing need for filtered water, scientists in the United States designed a rapid sand filter in the late nineteenth century (Baker & Taras, 1981). The rapid sand filter was cleaned by powerful jet streams of water, greatly increasing the efficiency and capacity of the water filter.

The Effect of the Scottish Enlightenment on Water Filter Technology
It is no coincidence that the first municipal water treatment plant was designed and installed in Scotland. Many of the greatest philosophers and scientists of the eighteenth century hailed from Scotland. Historians typically term the period between 1740 and 1800 the Scottish Enlightenment because of the outpouring of scientific thought from Scotland.

After the Act of Union of 1707, which joined Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England under the inclusive union of Great Britain, Scotland, traditionally known as one of the most backward nations in Europe, joined in the general fervor and scientific discovery of the Enlightenment (Buchan, 2003). In this period, David Hume, the Scottish philosopher and historian, outlined the tenets of the modern-day scientific method, and Adam Smith, the famous British economist, published his revolutionary economic theory that is the foundation of modern-day, free-trade economics.

A lesser known scientist and engineer, destined only to make the chronicles of water filtration history, also came from this era of Scottish Enlightenment. Robert Thom, advancing upon the technology of small-scale, slow sand filters, designed the first, citywide, water filtration plant. His plant was able to provide filtered, pathogen-free water to the entire city of Paisley, Scotland.

Thom's success in designing a municipal water treatment plant, added to the scientific evidence that had proven decreases in waterborne diseases as a result of filtered water, led to the passage of the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 (Binnie, Kimber, & Smethurst, 2002). This law, the first of its kind, required that all water supplied to London be treated by slow sand filtration.

Thom provided a revolutionary water filtration design that would change the face of water treatment history.

The Use of Chlorine to Purify Water
As municipal water treatment facilities sought to increase the quality and healthfulness of public water supplies, more and more cities began to implement chlorine into their water treatment process. Chlorine was first recognized as a valuable chemical in treating water when John Snow used it to purify the cholera-causing water of the Broad Street Pump. Noting the disinfecting nature of chlorine and its ability to curb cholera deaths, government officials in Great Britain began to chlorinate the public drinking water. This application of chlorine resulted in a sharp decline in deaths from typhoid, as well (Christman, 1998).

After the tremendous success of drinking water chlorination in England, chlorination began in New Jersey and soon spread through the entire United States. Chlorination of drinking water, combined with the use of sand water filters resulted in the virtual elimination of such waterborne diseases as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. In fact, chlorine was so effective at eliminating the outbreak and spread of waterborne diseases that Life magazine named water chlorination as "probably the most significant public health advance of the millennium" (Christman, 1998).

Chlorine has now been a major part of municipal water treatment for nearly 100 years. About 98% of municipal water treatment facilities now use chlorine disinfectant as their disinfectant of choice, and about 200 million U.S. residents receive chlorinated drinking water through their home faucets (Christman, 1998).

Scientists are now beginning to examine the possible byproducts and side effects of using chlorine in drinking water. Chlorine is listed as a known poison; it undoubtedly has an adverse effect on our body systems. Chlorinated water has been linked to the aggravation and cause of respiratory diseases like asthma. Also, because chlorine vaporizes at a much faster rate than water, chlorinated water presents a significant threat to the respiratory system when used for showering. Recent discoveries of the health concerns of chlorine have led many people to install shower filters or whole house water filter systems into their homes. Such installations are the next step in the evolution of water filtration technology.

The Clean Water Act of 1972
As the 20th century progressed, more and more metropolitan areas in the world found it necessary to install water treatment plants in order to provide clean, healthy water to their residents. It became a general principle in the developed world that every person had the right to clean, pure water. There was no universal standard or definition for clean, pure water. Many city officials, as they noted the disinfecting power of chlorine, believed that providing disinfected, yet untreated, water to city residents was their only responsibility.

Environmental concerns rose in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s that would greatly affect the definition of clean, pure water and the responsibility of the government to provide such water. In the early 1970s, environmental lobbyists in the United States began to see results in their fight for the environment. Multiple environmental acts passed through Congress in rapid succession, including the formation of Earth Day as a national holiday, the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the passage of the Clean Air Act, and, most important to the history of water filters, the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972 (Outwater, 1996).

The Clean Water Act, like the discovery of the microscope and the disastrous effects of cholera and typhoid epidemics throughout the world, sparked renewed interest in water filtration. It became law that every city in the nation install a water treatment plant, and it became a national goal to have clean water, once more, by 1985 (Outwater, 1996).

Because industrial waste was viewed as the main culprit of contaminated water, industrial plants were the main targets of the law. Over the next few decades, the U.S. government expended billions of dollars in grants to industries to create environment-friendly waste management techniques. Cities were also given grant money to install water treatment plants. Eventually, the sludge in the rivers and water supplies of the nation began to disappear.

Water Filtration in the Present - Whole House Water Filter Systems
Despite government regulations and incredible advancements in water technology, the water issuing from home taps is still quite contaminated. Although municipal water treatment plants are intended to provide clean, healthy water to all city residents, such plants must work with heavily contaminated water. The water contains disease-bearing pathogens, pesticide chemicals, and industrial sludge, to name only a few of modern water contaminants.

City officials must provide the healthiest water to municipal residents which modern technology affords. Considering the dirty water with which they have to work, this task can be quite daunting. Disinfection and disease control remain the main goals of such water treatment plants. Consequently, city residents receive chlorinated, and often fluoridated, water. Chlorine has been linked to asthma and other respiratory diseases, and excessive fluoride intake can lead to yellowed teeth, dental problems, and other serious health problems for young children.

City water treatment plants are simply unable to provide pure, chemical-free water to city residents. Even when water is purified at a municipal water treatment plant, it often picks up lead and other chemicals when traveling through a home's plumbing system. While shower filters are a viable solution for the removal of chlorine from showering water, the best, and most modern, available water filtration technology lies in whole house filtration systems. These water filtration systems are installed in individual homes. They filter water as it reaches a home's plumbing system, removing chlorine byproducts, tiny organic materials, and any other unwanted chemicals. They provide the purest form of water available. In fact, water filtered through a whole house water filter has begun to fulfill Hippocrates's vision of great-tasting, clean water

The Future of Water Filtration
The current major concerns in regard to water quality are lead and disinfection byproducts (Binnie et al, 2002). Lead is a key operational and treatment concern for municipal water treatment plants. It cannot be considered independently of other water quality and treatment issues. In fact, it seems that water disinfection and protection from lead infiltration are at odds with each other. The pH level required for disinfection must be below 8.0, but the pH level required to minimize lead solvency in plumbing systems is often 8.0 or higher. Water treatment plants provide clean, disinfected water to home plumbing systems, but this water is immediately contaminated from lead as it passes through the plumbing system. The solution to this problem may be the removal of lead from plumbing systems, a factor that would completely revolutionize the plumbing industry.

The rising concern over chlorine byproducts is also likely to affect the future of water filtration. It has long been recognized that chlorination of water results in the formation of THMs. THMs are harmful chemicals that form as a reaction between chlorine and natural, organic materials in water. The most well-known of the THMs is the poison chloroform. This poisonous gas, detrimental to the respiratory system when inhaled, is one of the most important reasons for the installation of shower filters or whole house water filters. It is likely that future research will find other byproducts of chlorination, and the use of chlorine for disinfection could be restricted.

Though these are all speculations, water filtration and treatment will, doubtlessly, continue to evolve in the future. The most important future development may well be the complete transformation of water filtration technology from municipal water treatment plants to whole house water filters, or a combination of the two systems.

References

Baker, M.N. and Taras, Michael J. (1981). The quest for pure water: The history of the twentieth century, volume 1 and 2. Denver: AWWA.

Binnie, Chris, Kimber, Martin, & Smethurst, George. (2002). Basic Water Treatment (3rd ed.). London: Thomas Telford Ltd.

Buchan, James. (2003). Crowded with genius: the Scottish enlightenment: Edinburgh's moment of the mind. New York: Harper Collins.

Christman, Keith. (1998). The history of chlorine. Waterworld, 14 (8), 66-67.

Outwater, Alice. (1996). Water: A natural history. New York: Basic Books.

Wilson, Catherine. (1995). The invisible world: early modern philosophy and the invention of the microscope. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

What does the history of water filtration have to do with Aqua Puro ?

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The history of water shows that sand has been used in water filtration and purification, successfully through history, and is one of the reasons why we use shell sand in our product, we also use Chitosan, which is a natural fiber derived from chitin, an amino-polysaccharide found in the shells of crabs, lobsters and other shellfish.
Chitosan is a remarkable dietary fiber that supports healthy digestive function. Fiber is the rough material found in vegetables, fruits and grains that cannot be digested by the body. As fiber passes through the stomach and intestines it helps absorb water, organic wastes and toxins, and carries them through the intestinal tract and out of the body. In Japan, chitosan was first used for wastewater treatment because of its metal-binding properties, but today chitin and chitosan are found in everything from antibiotics and surgical sutures to dietary supplements, foods and cosmetics.

It can be found in pet foods and is used to make cloth for undergarments and socks. In the U.S., chitin and chitosan are being used in seed treatment, animal feed supplementation and water purification, as well as in hair care products and dietary supplements.

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