Report to the local government board on certain means of preventing excrement nuisances in towns and villages / by J. Netten Radcliffe.

  • Radcliffe, J. Netten.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the local government board on certain means of preventing excrement nuisances in towns and villages / by J. Netten Radcliffe. 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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    On Excrement Nuisances, by Mr. J. Netten llailcliffe. Scope of present huiuiry. that this inaction has been mainly due to the ignorance, or the parsimony, or the carelessness of the bodies to which sanitary matters have been entrusted, but the whole extent of the inaction cannot thus be explained. Certain authorities have, indeed, been glad to have, as a handy excuse for delay- ing to take any step whatever towards amendment, the want of agreement throughout the world as to the means of amendment. But there are other authorities which have fully recognized the importance of efficient and safe excrement remoA'^al, which have made themselves acquainted with the defects of their own arrangements, and which have seriously inquired as to means of improvement; and yet even these authorities have, after all, been as little satisfied with any proposed alternative as with their own acknowledgedly bad system. No one who knows what many of these latter bodies have done in other ways of sanitary improvement, especially in the matter of water supply, can imagine that inaction in their case is without some reasonable cause. For the health of their communities has justifiably not been the only care with such authorities. There are other considerations which they have held in viewj and the chief of these, in a sanitary aspect, is that the disposal of the excrement shall be done without detriment to other people ; while in an economical point of view the question has ])ressed how there shall be restored to the earth for the sustenance of vegetation the elements which have been taken from the earth by vegetation for the sustenance of animals. The attainment of such objects has affected materially the ability and the disposition of authorities to deal with the primary sanitary aspects of excrement-disposal. “ I’he department, in its investigations as to the local ])revalence of disease, has been constantly brought face to face with this state of matters. Its inspec- tors, when they found places wanting in proper arrangements for excrement- disposal, have of course insisted on the mischief arising from this source, and on the need for improvement. But, especially where the local authority has itself been conscious of defects in its arrangements, and has already entertained schemes of amendment, yet without practical result, advice in general terms has been felt to be somewhat vague and unj)ractical. Evidently it would be helpful to the action of the local authorities in such circumstances to know what plans are being carried out in various other towns of the kingdom, and to have materials before them for judging how far any of such plans might prove applicable to their own wants, at all events for immediate purposes, and until better agreement should be attained as to the constructive arrangements that constitute perfection in regard of excrement-disposal.” With this object in view we examined and reported upon the arrange- ments for excrement-disposal in various northern towns ; and in addition to describing such of them in detail as we thought it might he useful for other places to knoAV, we endeavoured to determine, from the results of the investigation, certain general principles of action in the abatement of excrement nuisances which might serve as a guide to local authorities. The present inquiry (1874), carried out Tinder the Local Government Board, included also a further investigation of the dry-earth system, which had been dealt with and reported upon by Dr. Buchanan * inde- pendently in the first inquiry. The inquiry was directed to ascertain tlie additional experience which had been gained in the workino- of the various systems of excrement-disposal described in the previous reports, and generally such new experience as might have been obtained on the subject during the five years which had elapsed since the first inquiry ; and for this latter purpose it was extended over a wider ai-ea. The subject of nuisance from “ slops,” which is in some sort comple- mentary to that of excrement nuisance, was, moreover, included in the present inquiry. * On the Dry-Earth System of dealing with Exerement. Twelfth Renort of Medical Officer of Privy Council, 1869. ^