History of Water Treatment

Evidence of water treatment dates far back in history. Ancient Egyptian inscriptions describe a wide variety of water purification processes including boiling water, exposing it to sunlight, filtering it through charcoal, or just letting it settle in jugs. As early as 400 B.C.E., Hippocrates (the father of medicine) recommended boiling water and straining it through cloth. In the 1850s, scientists realized that water could carry disease. That connection led to the first attempts to disinfect water through the use of chlorine, a chemical that disinfects water. Chlorination was first used in the U.S. in 1908 and is still in use today. Chlorination helped to wipe out waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid.