Abel Wolman; Helped Perfect Water Purification Technique

Abel Wolman, a Johns Hopkins University sanitary engineer who helped to perfect the use of chlorine to create safe drinking water for millions of people around the world, died at his home here Wednesday. He was 96.

Seventy years ago, Wolman collaborated with the late chemist Linn H. Enslow to develop a method of purifying drinking water with precise amounts of chlorine.

Dr. Jared L. Cohon, Johns Hopkins vice provost for research, remembered the revolutionary aspects of the concept:

“Think about it. Take a substance which is otherwise toxic . . . and add it to water, and tell people to drink it. It’s still the primary water treatment used today. It’s in use throughout the world. That’s a remarkable thing to say.”

The concept of chlorinating water was not new when the two men developed their formula in 1918 (it had been tried in Europe in the 1880s), but the technique had yet to be refined to take into account the bacterial content in a particular water source.

Their formula specified how much chlorine should be mixed with a given source of water, taking into consideration the bacterial content, the acidity and other factors related to the water’s desired taste and purity.

For the rest of his life Wolman remained a consultant on water sanitation to local governments and to about 50 countries, including Egypt, Britain, India, Israel and Taiwan.

He advised the U.S. Public Health Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Atomic Energy Commission and the World Health Organization.

He received the National Medal of Science from President Gerald R. Ford in 1975. In 1976, he shared the Tyler Ecology Award, a $150,000 prize, with two other scientists.

Last June, shortly after his 96th birthday, the Pan American Health Organization cited him for “extraordinary contributions to public health.”