Deoxygenation of Polluted Waters: The Rate of Deoxygenation of Polluted Waters

The biochemical oxygen demand test to be discussed in this paper, although at present it enjoys a certain measure of renewed interest, is by no means new. The earliest record of such a procedure is probably to be found in a report published in 1870 by a British Rivers Pollution Commission. In France, oxygen demand determinations were made as long ago as 1885 in a study of the pollution of the Seine. In Germany, extensive series of experiments were conducted on the test from 1900 to 1911. In the United States, a modified procedure appears to have been used in the early experiments at the Lawrence Experiment Station, although it is only since 1915 that the method now in use has been more or less generally adopted.