Why Monitor Chlorine?

In our society today, we take for granted that we have clean drinking water. We assume that we won't get water born illnesses. Chlorine is what is responsible for that luxury, but what happened before chlorinated drinking water was available? Sickness like cholera and dysentery were rampant in the pre-chlorinated water days. But in 1854, a British doctor made the link between contaminated drinking water and cholera, and then treated the water with chlorine in order to kill the organism. In the years since, it has become the standard to use chlorine in order to treat water with chlorine in conjunction with the filtering processes for water treatment. There can be too much of a good thing, however. So, what happens when chlorine levels are too high? Chlorine is a gas, and when breathed in, results in respiratory distress, chest pain and water retention in the lungs. In order to prevent this, chlorine monitors and analyzers are used in the water treatment processes so that workers are not injured. Chlorine dissolves into our water and thus kills the microorganisms that would otherwise harm us. A process that in one form or another, has been happening for over one hundred years, giving us safe drinking water. Due, in part, to closely analyzed chlorine.