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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    —Page 127. However, to do that gentleman justice, we sliall quote his opinions in parallel columns. 1868. “ It was accurately stated that tlie evils inseparable from the ~W. C. system were likely to be less felt in Glasgow than in many other places, oiving to the considerable fall of the greater number of the sewers, and the almost unlimited supply of water by which the matter was dil- uted.” Glasgow Medical Jouenal, November, US6B. 1872. “ It has been conclusively shown, that houses presumed to be beyond suspicion of any possi- ble danger to health from this cause—houses in which the most skilful engineers and architects had, as they believed, exhausted the resources of modern sanitary science—have, nevertheless, been exposed in a high degree to the diseases arising from air in contact with the products of decomposition in the sewers. And this for a very obvious reason. Such houses are usually built on high levels, where the drains have a very rapid fall.” The italics (which are our own) show that in 1868 the rapid fall in the sewers preserved Glasgow from sewer gas,—in 1872, the same rapid fall renders houses in high levels “ ex- posed in a high degree to disease.” The Medical Officer kindly offers to give every assistance to overcome inertia on this matter—hut whence came the inertia —or why complain of it, when, after five years’ service, he him- self tells us in 1868 that Glasgow has little to fear from sewer gas? How have the sewers become so had since then—what are the grounds of the Medical Officer’s sudden change of opinion—and what confidence can the public, or public authori- ties have in his leading ? There is matter of congratulation that the Medical Officer is now alive to this “ ever-abiding source of danger;” hut it is a pity that so many years have elapsed meanwhile, and so many