Sanitary houses : two lectures to builders and plumbers delivered in the Hall of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, Edinburgh, 3d and 11th December 1877 / by J.A. Russell.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanitary houses : two lectures to builders and plumbers delivered in the Hall of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, Edinburgh, 3d and 11th December 1877 / by J.A. Russell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and proclaimed by him in 1862 as a fact with regard to Massachusetts, but the full statistical proof was not forth- coming till the reports of Dr Buchanan, medical oflScer of the Privy Council, appeared in 1866 and 1867. Rheumatism and heart disease are, next to consumption, the diseases most affected by drainage. The de]pth and number of the land-drains required to dry the subsoil will vary with its character, but they cannot be placed where the solidity of the earth bearing the walls might be shaken. Water will rise a long way in chalk by capillary attraction, but only a very short distance in sand. Clay requires many drains from its retentive properties, while one may be enough in gravel. In any case the subsoil water should be at least three feet below the foundations. These drains, like all others, should have no blind ends, and should be arranged so as to admit and discharge air freely, and con- sequently have a circulation of pure air through them. They must on no account communicate directly with a sewer, or there will be a danger of sewage gas passing back and satu- rating the soil. Isolation.—Even with a well-drained subsoil it is necessary to isolate the walls and rooms from it. This may be best accomplished by a well-ventilated air space or cellar below the house with ashes or charcoal upon the floor, or by a con- crete bed stretching across from outside wall to outside wall. The waUs may have concrete foundations, and must have damp-proof courses of some impervious material to prevent damp rising in them. Slate and cement, or asphalte, or, perhaps better, vitrified tiles Fig. 1 with ventilating holes, are used. The out- Ventilating Damp side of walls, below the level of the ground, proof Course. James , , t , i i r •. i Stiff & Sons, Lam- should be Separated from it by a space or area. The necessity for the complete isola- tion of the dwelling from the ground is obvious if we remember that water vapour, coal gas, and sewage gas are all lighter than air, and so tend to ascend into the dwelling and pass through barriers by diffusion, which is a property greatly influenced as