The sewage question : with remarks on a little suspected, frequent, and not easily detected source of typhoid and other zymotics / by Andrew Fergus.

  • Fergus, Andrew, 1822-1887.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sewage question : with remarks on a little suspected, frequent, and not easily detected source of typhoid and other zymotics / by Andrew Fergus. 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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    arrangements have been entered into to provide closets for works employing 12,000 men. Captain Liernur proposed some time ago what he terms a pneu- matic system of collecting the excreta, and applying it direct to the soil. The great objections to his scheme were that it would require a special plough—that we would require to be always ploughing, or the matter would accumulate, and that if frost came we would be necessitated to cease putting it into the ground. When a community has been accustomed to water-closets, it is very difficult to get any alteration made, and therefore some schemes have been devised to retain the water-closet, but to prevent the matters from them getting into the sewers. Mr Strang proposes an upward system of filtration. His apparatus consists of a large box, divided by a perforated bottom, the upper division being filled with cinders, ashes, or charcoal. The lower division receives the contents of the closets; as it fills the water rises through the perforated bottom, passes upwards, and flows off at the top much purified. From time to time the contents of the lower division are removed, and are of considerable value. Mr Hoey has devised an apparatus which is intended to leave us with all the comfort and convenience of the water-closet, and yet at once to get quit of all the nuisance and dangers of that system. It is not easy to describe mechanism without drawings, but I shall try and give some explanation of Mr Hoey’s plan. First, The water-closets are left just as they are at present. Second, The flush-pipe is not attached to the general cistern, but to one holding only one-fifth of a gallon of water, which takes two minutes to fill. When the bar of the water-closet is raised, the supply to this small cistern is cut off, so that it is almost im- possible to waste water—it could only be wasted by some one raising the bar every two minutes. Third, A vessel like a bird-cage fountain is filled with sulphuric acid, and at each time the closet is used a portion of it is discharged with the water by means of a plunger dipping into the acid. Fourth, The waste-pipe from the closet flows into a reservoir underground, from which the excreta are removed by pneumatic pressure without the slightest offence, and then taken to the country to be evaporated into portable manure. Instead of the sulphuric acid, I would propose the use of common salt, to which my attention was directed by the researches of Dr Angus Smith. You will find salt very favourably spoken of in his work on Disinfectants, at page 78. At page 128, he tells us that it is seven times cheaper than chloride of lime, and fourteen times cheaper than carbolic acid; and at page 97 we read what was the effect of only two ounces on one cwt. of human excrement. The great advantages of salt are its cheapness, its thorough efficiency, as well as its being itself a valuable fertilizer of soil, and amply repaying the agriculturist for his outlay. I would recommend the removal of the product of the closets by