Minutes of information collected with reference to works for the removal of soil water or drainage of dwelling houses and public edifices and for the sewerage and cleansing of the sites of towns / General Board of Health.

  • General Board of Health.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Minutes of information collected with reference to works for the removal of soil water or drainage of dwelling houses and public edifices and for the sewerage and cleansing of the sites of towns / General Board of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    House Drains in creating foul Deposit. House-drains, constructed as described, commonly convey the waoe into cesspools, from some of which the overflow is carried away into the sewers, but often there is no overflow- drain, and the liquid percolates into the soil beneath and adjoining the building. When the cesspool becomes filled with the solid filth detained, it is not unusual, instead of emptying it, to form another. Beneath many of the more moderate-sized houses as many as three cesspools have been found; their ordinary state is displayed in the following sketch:— So perverse had been the former practice in respect to house-cleansing, that when water-closets were introduced, and when it might have been conceived that the ordure removed from sight would be immediately conveyed from the pre- mises, it was only accumulated in a cesspool beneath them. A large proportion of the best houses * in this metropolis have cesspools provided beneath, and when one has been filled up another has been opened, until much of the site is thus occupied. In some of the towns visited, where the practice of using cesspools has been long in operation, and where the subsoil is * During the first labours of the General Board of Health much illness prevailed amongst the clerks, until on one occasion foul smells arising more severely than had before been noticed, the state of the foundations was examined, when it was discovered that there were two very large cesspools immediately beneath the Board's offices. This is the description of houses of which it is generally reported by house agents and others that they are well drained and in good condition ; but it may be advised that it is absolutely unsafe to take any house without a thorough examination of the site beneath it, nor when any cases of fever, typhoid or gastric, have occurred amongst persons living in the lower offices of a house, is it safe for those who value their own health to remain in the premises without such an examination, nor until the cesspools are removed. [43] B 2
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