Report to the Right Hon. Lord Panmure, G.C.B., &c., Minister at War, of the proceedings of the Sanitary Commission dispatched to the seat of war in the East, 1855-56 / presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, March 1857.

United Kingdom. Sanitary Commission (1855-1856)

Date:: 1857

Credit: Report to the Right Hon. Lord Panmure, G.C.B., &c., Minister at War, of the proceedings of the Sanitary Commission dispatched to the seat of war in the East, 1855-56 / presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, March 1857. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$mud lying in llollo^YS, and there Averc nuisances among the houses, rhe ravine ah-eady mentioned to the south-east of the hospital, contained oifensive deposit, which tainted the air on that side of the building. There Avas some refuse, and several dead dogs lying close to the hospital The surface of the inner square was uneven, badly formed, imperfectly drained, and A ery dirty. On entering the hospital, the first thing that attracted our attention Avas the defective state of the ventilation. Excepting a few small openings here and there, there ^^ere no means of renewing the atmosphere withm the hospital The large cubic space above the top of the ward Avindows always retained a considerable amount of hot and foul air for Avhich there Avas no escape. There was not even an open fire-place connected with the building, and the wards were heated by stoves, the pipes of Avhich passed through a small hole at the top of one of the Avmdows. There was no communication between the wards and corridors in the majority of instances, ^fP* j];^ f^^^J and hence that free circulation and perflation of the atmo snhere so necessary in military hospitals, was impossible. The wards and corridors being both occupied -c^; t^^^y could, in fact, be considered only as two hospitals built back to ba k Avith the foul air in each intermmglmg by ^le doors. The effluvia from the privies had free access to the corn- dors and added materially to the impurity of the air. Ve found the whole of the Turkish sewerage belonging to the Barrack Hospital in a defective condition The feAvers and drains were badly formed, badly constructed, ' that all the building. ,sed as hospitals were sewered. Turkislr sewers are made of ^bble-stone, or coarse brick-work. The bottoms are flat, ! nud uneven; there are no means of external ventila- ZtC^^^ cleansing or flushing, and the ends or \b of the sewers at Scutari opened above the level o the ^^were exposed to the action of the winds, Avhich, in sea, and were e p ^ewer-end, and carried the ^^lf::Sr^the deposits within them through th^$