Engineering in relation to hygiene.
- International Congress of Hygiene and Demography
- Date:
- 1892
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Engineering in relation to hygiene. 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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![branch pipes at an acute angle, each one having also a short vertical branch, to serve as an inspection hole, and large enough to remove any matter that would choke a four-inch house drain. While being laid, the position of each inspection-hole was permanently marked on the surface, and also fixed by recorded cross measurements. Curved pipes were expensive to make, so their use was as much as possible avoided b}' putting a manhole at every change in the direction of the sewers. Zeehan is a mining town, and the whole district is a mining district; consequently, when lead concentrating work is largely carried on it will be quite impracticable to prevent the metallic poisoning of the streams running through it, rendering their waters unfit for animal consumption. But such water does not give off the noxious emanations of sewage. So, though it has not been thought worth while at present to purify the sewage before its discharge, care has been taken to make provision that the eventual outfalls shall be at a distance from all settlement. As no good bricks are yet made in the district, and the bad ones made cost £10 a thousand, the manholes of the sewers, and the trapped and ventilated catchpits for house and yard drainage were made in wood. Huon 2)ine, Dacrydium Franhlinii, is an admirable wood for these jjurposes, being almost imperishable. Water troughs, laid ^Jartly in the ground for intermittent irrigation work, are still quite sound after 40 years’ use; and the slabs of it set up instead of headstones on the graves at Settlement Island, Macquarie Harbour, though dated 1825 and 1826, are still quite as good both above and below ground—the arrises only being very slightly weathered. The wood of the Blue Gunv {^Eucalyptus globulus') is also almost equally indestructible, and it was principally used. While the sewerage works were being carried on, the local board of health, having obtained from the Government the grant of a suitable piece of land as a depositing ground, entered into arrangements for the periodical removal and burial or destruction of all refuse. As there is no water sujiply at present available for waterclosets, notices were issued to every householder to construct and maintain a proper earth-closet of a certain pattern, and to ^^rovide suitable rece})tacles for house refuse; and the weekly cleansing of both these forms j)art of the arrangements above referred to. Notices were also served for the thorough cleansing of all yards and outbuildings. As the sewers were being designed, the details of all house drains were also settled, and the owners of all property were called u^jon, immediately a sewer was available, to construct the drains accordingly. Nothing was done by the Government with regard to a water su])})ly as a private company is jiromoting a Bill in Parliament for establishing waterworks. At i)resent nearly all the houses have galvanised iron roofs and large tanks, and the large rainfall ensures a pretty constan supply. Ajiart from the ^JOjiulation settled in houses, there is an almost equally large po2>ulation dwelling in huts or tents. Where these are occnj)ied by miners, and erected uj)on the claims of the companies for I p. 2205. C](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28045427_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
