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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![On House Drains without Ventilation. By John Honeyman, F.R.I.B.A. [Abstract of Paper read before the Society, 6th March, 1889.] In the course of the discussion which followed the reading of a paper by me at the Bolton Congress of the Sanitary Institute in 1887, on The size of house drains and the use and misuse of traps, Mr. H. R Newton proposed that, instead of increasing the ventilation of house drains—as I had recommended,—we should rather by all possible means keep sewage free from contact with air, which might be effected to a large extent by keeping the drains always full. (See Transactions of the Sanitary Institute, Vol. IX., p. 291.) This idea was not favourably entertained by the meeting, but I concurred with Mr. Newton to this extent, that drains should either be thoroughly ventilated or not ventilated at all, and that it would be distinctly better to have our house drains always full than to have them in the condition which is now generally considered satisfactory, with means of ventilation which are quite inefficient. On further consideration, I am inclined to think that, as a means of protection against sewage gas, a full drain is superior even to a well-ventilated drain. The question at least seems of sufficient importance to merit the careful attention of the members of our Sanitary Section, and I therefore ventui'e to bring it before you. At first our prejudices are strongly aroused against the idea of keeping our house drains full of sewage; but it is evident that sewage in a perfectly water-tight pipe cannot possibly do any person any harm : no one could tell whether it contained pure water or foul. But, as a matter of fact, there is no reason why the house drain which is kept full should not, as a rule, be full of pure, or nearly pure, water. The whole requirements are remark- ably simple, and I can see no serious practical difficulty in the way of adopting the system. The first requirement is that the house drain should be so laid that it shall always remain full from end to end, the sewage overflowing at the end next the sewer. Of course the drain must be water-tight, as all drains ought to be.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2145954x_0001.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
