Hints on drains, traps, closets, sewer gas, and sewage disposal / P. Hinckes Bird.

Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints on drains, traps, closets, sewer gas, and sewage disposal / P. Hinckes Bird. 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.

    80/94 (page 80)
    8. In towns where a water-carried system is employed, a rapid flow, thorough ventilation, a proper connection of the house drains and pipes with the sewers, and their arrangement and maintenance in an efficient condition, are absolutely essential as regards health; hitherto sufficient precautions have rarely been taken for efficiently ensuring all the foregoing conditions. 4. With regard to the various dry systems where collection at short intervals is properly carried out, the result appears to be satisfactory, but no really profitable appli- cation of any one of them appears as yet to have been accomplished. 5. The old midden or privy system, in populous districts, should be discontinued, and prohibited by law. 6. Sufficient information was not brought forward at the Conference to enable the Committee to express an opinion in regard to any of the foreign systems. 7. It is conclusively shown that no one system for disposing of sewage could be adopted for universal use; that different localities require different methods to suit their special peculiarities, and also that, as a rule, no profit can be derived at present from sewage utilization. 8. For health's sake, without consideration of commercial profit, sewage and excreta must be got rid of at any cost. The Executive Committee, whilst abstaining ft-om submit- ting any extensive measures, have no hesitation in recommend- ing that the prevention of dangerous effects from sewage gases should receive the immediate attention of the Legislature, and they submit the following resolutions as the basis of petitions to Parliament :— ]. That the protection of public health from typhoid and other diseases demands that an amending Act of Parlia- ment be passed, as soon as possible, to secure that all house drains connected with public sewers in the metropolis and towns having an urban authority should be placed under the inspection and control of local sanitary authorities, who shall be bound to see to the effective construction and due maintenance of all such house drains, pipes, and connections. Provisions having this object in view already exist in the Act constituting the Commissioners of Sewers in the City of London, in the Metropolis Local Management Act, 1855, and in the Public Health Act, 1875, but practically they seem scarcely sufficient for the purpose.