On house drains without ventilation / by John Honeyman.

  • John Honeyman
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On house drains without ventilation / by John Honeyman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    2 Philosophical Society of Glasgow. The second requirement is that means be provided for flushing the drain periodically, either automatically or otherwise—such a volume of pure or waste water being discharged on each occasion as shall displace the whole contents of the drain. Nothing else is required except attention to some small matters of detail which present no special difficulty. For example, care must be taken that the drain does not syphon into the sewer, and that the flushing tank is not placed higher than the lowest sink or water-closet connected with the drain. The bottom of the tank should be at the same level as the highest part (the overflow) of the drain, but in most cases the top of it might be much higher, giving a good head for the flush. It is also important that the house drain should be no larger than is necessary to contain the house sewage. In hardly any case would this exceed six inches in diameter, and it will generally be advisable that the drain, so far as it is within the house, should be of iron. In action, this drain would never be more than 24 hours without being thoroughly scoured, and its contents would always be com- paratively pure and free from fermentation ; so that no harm could possibly result from connecting waste or soil pipes directly with it; for, in the first place, the drain could contain no aerial microbes, and, in the second, each connection would be effectually sealed. The difference between this system and that in ordinary use may be summed up thus : Under the present system the drains are always full of air more or less foul and favourable to the develop- ment of virulent microbes, whereas under the other the drains are always full of water more or less foul; and the essential sanitary difference is this—that, while many things prejudicial to health can come out of the one drain, nothing prejudicial to health*can possibly come out of the other. The one is a constant source of danger, from which we attempt to guard ourselves by means which have often been proved to be unreliable ; the other need give us no concern whatever. The balance of advantage therefore seems clearly on the side of the latter.
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