Public health in European capitals : Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Christiania, Stockholm, and Copenhagen / by Thomas Morison Legge.

  • Legge, Sir Thomas Morison, 1863-1932.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Public health in European capitals : Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Christiania, Stockholm, and Copenhagen / by Thomas Morison Legge. 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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    the drain, as in this country. But it is well known that abroad there is not the same feeling about the dangers that may arise from the entrance of sewer air into the house that there is here. Since the introduction of the drainage works the total mortality has declined from 32-9 per 1,000 in 1875 to, in 1892, 2o*2, and the diminution in the death rate from typhoid fever, which gives perhaps the best indication of its value, has fallen from 23'05 of all causes of death in the ten years, 1871-80, to 7*13 in 1881-90. The sewage 1° no place has sewage farming had such a Farms. chance, and been so brilliantly successful as at Berlin, for an almost unlimited extent of suitable land was obtainable. The ground was highly porous, consisting practically of sandy wastes, on which only stunted fir trees and birches could grow. To-day they have been trans- formed into fertile fields. There are five chief sewage farms, three, Falkenberg, Malchow, and Blankenfeld, situated some four or five kilometres to the north of Berlin; and two, Osdorf and Grossbeeren, some ten to fifteen kilometres to the south. The total area of the land which the city can devote to sewage irrigation works amounts to over 22,500 acres; but of this, so far, only about 11,000 acres have been laid out. In the year 1892-3, 61,858,754 cubic metres of sewage were pumped out to the works, which represents 106 litres per head of the population per day. This latter sum is in excess of the average water supply per head (6848 litres) by 3742 litres, which represents therefore the rain-water, pump-water, etc., in addition. I was able to see in detail the method of working as carried out at the Grossbeeren farm. All the ground has been carefully levelled and underdrained to the depth of one metre. The sewage is pumped from Berlin in an iron main one metre in diameter, to the highest point on the farm, where it discharges into a chamber. From this central