First report of the commissioners : appointed to inquire whether any and what special means may be requisite for the improvement of the health of the metropolis, with minutes of evidence.
- Great Britain. Metropolitan Sanitary Commission
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: First report of the commissioners : appointed to inquire whether any and what special means may be requisite for the improvement of the health of the metropolis, with minutes of evidence. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
73/460 page 53
![The mere view of the ordinary run of sewer-water in the sewers, or of the run of water on the occasion of heavy storms, might have led to some amendment in the construction of sewers without any ganging-, had a view been taken of the flow in the lateral as well as in the main lines of sewer; but the sizes of all classes of sewers have been maintained on the view of the main lines alone. Mr. Hertslet* was asked,—■ Have you inspected the sewers yourself?—I have traversed within- side all the principal main lines from one end to the other ; and I do not think that any work exceeding1 100/. in value has been executed that I have not visited several times. What has been the result of your observations as to the sizes of the sewers'?—I have been perfectly at a loss to conceive why such immense sewers should be built to carry off such mere threads of drainage. I have often thought, and have so stated in Court, that the Commissioners generally, from viewing only the main lines, have a very false impres- sion as to the sizes required. I have seen sewers 5 feet 6 inches high by 3 feet wide, being built where, even during heavy rain, a 3 or 4-inch pipe would evidently have carried off all the water. The followingf are tables of the result of the gauaings of the run in sewers of different sizes obtained by Mr. Roe,-}- in which will be seen examples where the run of water in the sewers in the greatest storm on record (a case that ought not to enter into consideration in determining the sizes) occupied only a third, a fourth, and even a sixth of the capacity of the sewers. All except the first are col- lateral sewers, not receiving any drainage but from the houses named in the streets or courts.—[See Table, p. 54.] It appears that in the second or third-rate class of streets, the run of water from the houses to the sewers is about 45 gallons per diem; but that in the streets of the first classof houses, all of which have water-closets, and all drain into the sewers, the daily run of water is, on the average, about 75 gallons per diem per house, except on the days on which the intermittent supplies are on, when the run increases in the third-rate streets from 45 gallons to about 78 gallons, and in the first-rate streets from 75 gallons to upwards of 100 gallons, during the day, affording an example of the waste incurred under that system. So far as the ob- servations have proceeded, they are in corroboration of the opinion that the prospective estimate of a supply of 25 gallons per head of the population per diem, or 125 gallons per house, would effect all that at present appears necessary to keep a properly devised system of house-drains and sewers of a town in salubrious action. From what we have stated, it will be seen that we contemplate the alteration of the system of sewers constructed to accumulate deposit and for men to enter and cleanse them, and the general substitution of a much smaller and more economical system of collateral sewers, kept in action by regular supplies of water. * App. No. 12. f App. No. 18.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21011527_0073.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
