Observations on foul water irrigation : founded on a personal survey of different districts of the city, and an examination of their comparative salubrity, being a reply to certain statements made at a meeting of the Town-Council on the 2d April, 1839 / by William Tait.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on foul water irrigation : founded on a personal survey of different districts of the city, and an examination of their comparative salubrity, being a reply to certain statements made at a meeting of the Town-Council on the 2d April, 1839 / by William Tait. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    M In llie discussions wliicli liave taken place at the Council Board and the different meetings wliich have been held througliout the Town, the various speakers have, without exception, confounded two very different things ; or in other words, not taken sufficient care to distinguish between a natural marsh and artificial irrigation. In the preceding observations, we have made use of the terms indiscriminately, in order to accommo- <late our remarks to the sense in which the terms were used on other oc- casions, although we were fully convinced that there was some misappre- hension as to their true meaning. Irrigation is never required to expedite vegetable growth in a marshy district, which requires rather an opposite mode of cultivation to insure a healthy vegetation. Natural marshes are generally acknowledged to be unhealthy, and on that fact all the obser- vations rest which have been made against the irrigated lands around Edinburgh. It must, however, be remembered, that nothing but coarse and unpalatable aquatic plants grow there, and that the water is for the most part stagnant; whereas in irrigation, the water is brought over the land in a current so gentle, as not to injure the feeblest plant, or endan- ger the tearing up of the soil; and is carried off the surface so perfectly, that scarcely a drop becomes stagnant, and it thus becomes “ covered with a conspicuous verdure of the sweetest grasses.” After full enquiry, we are prepared to state, that no more sickness prevails on the estates of those gentlemen who have, within the last 30 years, floated a part of their lands, than what prevailed at the period previous to the commence- ment of irrigation. It is true that few have had opportunities of irri- gating with the water from the common sewers of large towns ; but near to Crieff and Maybole, where foul water irrigation was first tried in Scot- land, and is continued to the present day, there has not been the small- est trace of any increase of fever or other disease. The probability is, that as the sub-soil must be very porous, or the lands completely drained before any advantage can be derived from irrigation, _there is no analogy between a natural marsh and lands thus cultivated—and this difference in their nature ought never to be lost sight of when speaking of the evils resulting from them. From the observations of Mr Diysdale, we are led to infer that fever has decreased in almost every large totvn, with the exception of Edin- burgh—that in none has it* of late years been a formidable epidemic— and in several of them it is entirely imknown.” This we consider a very partial view of the subject; for it is a notorious fact, that fever has in- creased greatly in several large towns during the last two years. In Glasgow, for example, there were admitted into the Hospital in 1836, 3125 cases, and in 1837, 5387, being an increase in one year of 2262 cases—being 20 cases more than were admitted into the Edinburgh Infirmary altogether. The number of fever petients treated by the dis- trict surgeons in their own houses in 1836, were 716, and in 1837, 2320, being an increase of 1604. The following table will give an idea of the gradual increase of fever in Glasgow in Hospital, district, and