Report of the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission on the sanitary condition and improvement of the Mediterranean stations / [Douglas Galton, John Sutherland].
- Great Britain. Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission.
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission on the sanitary condition and improvement of the Mediterranean stations / [Douglas Galton, John Sutherland]. 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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![feet above high-water mark, and reaches that ]evel after a sectional course of about 1,000 feet. Another commences at a height of 264 feet, and descends to the sea level after a course of about 1,500 feet, 500 feet of the lower end being nearly horizontal. A third has a fall of 264 feet in 2,200 feet. A fourth discharges its water into a nearly horizontal main, after a fall of 232 feet in 1,550 feet. The peculiarity of the system is, that the rain-fall on the surface of the town and on the roofs of the houses, together with the deluge of surface water which descends from the highly inclined slopes above, runs with extreme rapidity from all the higher levels into the lower and flatter districts, where it bursts the sewers, saturates the subsoil, and interferes with the efficient drainage of all the lower parts of the town. As we shall presently see, there is no water supply except what is carried by hand, and the result is that although the sewers and drains are flushed out, more or less effectually, by heavy rains, most of the excreta of the population is retained in the sewers and drains in the interval between the rainy seasons ; the drains become nothing but cess- pits during the dry, warm, and unhealthy months of the year, and the entire drainage system is most offensive1 and unwholesome at such times. The outlets are very bad ; the sewage is carried in iron pipes across the shallow water intervening between the line wall and the breakwater, and is discharged outside; but during heavy rains the drains generally burst outside the line wall, and within the breakwater ; the sewage finds its way in a diluted form into the shallow water, and there becoming- decomposed in warm weather it gives rise to intolerable nuisance. Indeed in several cases an opening is purposely left in the drain outside the line wall to allow of overflow, which leads to the same result. There is no sewer ventilation, and the foul air finds its way through badly-constructed untrapped gulley grates and privies into the streets and to the interior of the patios and houses. However defective the existing drainage system may be, the main sewerage at present is very much better than the house drainage. Indeed, hardly anything could be worse than this is, and it will be a great mistake to expect superior health from any improvements in the main drainage unless a radical change be effected in the house drainage. Every house appears to have a drain of some kind or other. It commences in the patio or court, by an open, untrapped, or badly-trapped orifice, through which the most offensive gases escape. There are no water-closets, at least in the poor class of houses; there is one privy generally for the whole population of the court. It is merely an opening over a badly- constructed drain, without water, except what may be thrown into it by hand, and admitting the sewer air as well as nuisance from the place itself freely into the court. The surface drainage of these courts is often very bad. Rubble stone is used for paving, and where there are flags they are often broken or uneven, allowing filth and foul water to lie on the surface, endangering the public health. These very serious drainage defects have occupied the attention of the military authorities, and they propose to remedy them in the following manner:— It has been proposed by the Commanding Royal Engineer to intercept the sewage from all the higher levels of the town, except a small district at the north end of the town, by an intercepting sewer 3,200 feet in length, commencing at the point where the level ot the high- level sewer reaches the foot of Bell Lane, at an elevation of 20 feet 2 inches above high- water mark. From this point the sewer proceeds southward, following the line of the main street of Gibraltar; through the South bastion, and terminates at the Ragged Staff. The form of the sewer is egg-shaped, 2 feet 6 inches high at the commencement and 4 feet 6 inches at the outlet, where it is continued out beyond the end of the quay 250 feet from the shore. The sewer will be closed against the influx of sea water at high tide (which would back-water the outlet to a considerable distance), while it will permit of free discharge of sewage as the tide falls. There will be 6 feet of water over the sewer top at low water. The current setting round the bay will pass the mouth of the sewer, and carry the sewage into a large body of water, where it will become sufficiently diluted to be harmless. This intercepting sewer will turn aside from the low flat districts of the town very nearly the entire rain-fall of the surface of the higher part of the town, which at present flows into these low districts, and only the drainage of the lower districts will have to be carried in its present course through the line wall. The relation of this intercepting sewer to the existing drainage is shown on Plan XXIV. The scheme is correct in principle, but it is intended only for the relief of the sewers of the lower districts from the sewTage of that part of the town built on the slopes above. It does not contemplate cutting off the rain-fall of the higher hill slopes from the subsoil of the town, and yet this is an element absolutely essential to the public health. This](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21364916_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
