Proceedings of the Sanitary Association of Scotland : with papers read at the annual meeting held at Perth, July, 1890 / edited by James Christie.
- Sanitary Association of Scotland. Congress 1890 : Perth, Scotland)
- Date:
- 1890
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Proceedings of the Sanitary Association of Scotland : with papers read at the annual meeting held at Perth, July, 1890 / edited by James Christie. 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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![discreditably high—what inducement has she held out to persons desirous of ascertaining whether the drainage of their houses was what it should be. The ben^ts, writes Mr. Fyfe, of an assurance from the sanitary department that the drainage is riglit and no danger to be feared from the entrance of sewer gas, has lately led both proprietors and tenants to make application for a smoke test, although they have no immediate grounds for believing that sewer gas is finding its way into the house. It has hitherto been my custom to refuse all such applications, as my inspection is a legal proceeding, and based upon a reasonable suspicion of nuisance. As our present staff is unable to cope with such demands, the matter has been referred to your Honour- able Board, and is under consideration. The main argument in favour of testing ' on request' is that it is too late to find a flaw after disease or death from blood-poisoning, enteric fever, or diphtheria has drawn attention to the suspected cause. The argument against it is the extra staff required and the expense entailed for work which will fend the proprietors of property from the full onus of responsibility. It is of course not the duty of a sanitary inspector to attempt to dictate to the local authorities in whose employ he is, and Mr. Fyfe may have been bound in fairness to state the arguments adduced against as well as those in favour of the proposal ] but I cannot help believing that a man of his intelligence must have recognized the absurdity of the last objection, which states that inspection on demand would absolve the property owner from his full burden of responsibility. Why, what responsibility has he 1 When his tenants have been pois- oned and his neighbour's tenant killed through his defective drains, what responsibility has he save that of making the drainage good 1 And if he has previously asked inspection and it has been refused, and he has thus been prevented from acting on the impulse that would have led to the prevention of the mischief, it seems to me that the onus of moral responsibility will rest very lightly on him as compared with the Board that, entrusted with powers of assessment for sanitary purposes and exercising them freely when it suits their taste, attempt by their petty economy in a most vital matter to compound for waste at the bung by parsimony at the spiggot. Did time permit I might advert to another easily suppressed nuisance, for the suppression of which ample powers exist, and the reduction of which could not fail to be attended by the most beneficial results in the health of our large cities. I refer to the smoke nuisance. The importance for health of a clean and unpolluted atmosphere, as well as clean surroundings, is shown by the fact that in our navy, notwithstanding all the hardships and vicissitudes of climate which our seamen have to encounter, the death-rate from disease is only half what it is in our home army—is largely less than even that of which the German army](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21459733_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
