ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one example of the failure of water scientists to take Edward Frankland seriously. It examines Frankland’s disproof of oxidative self-purification, the chief factors responsible for the repudiation of Frankland’s water science and the eventual challenge to Frankland’s river studies and experiments by Charles Meymott Tidy in the early 1880s; and the failure of their debate to lead to an understanding of the biological self-purification of rivers. Frankland identified sources of complication inherent in self-purification studies but made only a half-hearted attempt to correct for these complications. Frankland cultivated the opposition of industry. Industry foolishly discarded as waste materials that could be profitably recycled. The extent to which the content of Frankland’s water science was politicized is profound. In 1880 Frankland’s self-purification experiments and river studies were finally challenged in detail. Both Frankland and Tidy had done experiments on self-purification.
