General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the town of Kelso : drawn up at the request of the Board of Governers of Police / by Charles Wilson.

Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the town of Kelso : drawn up at the request of the Board of Governers of Police / by Charles Wilson. 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.

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    eight feet below tJie surface of the road-way ; a depth at which the principal sewers of towns are usii.ally placed. '1 his point once attained, an efficient drainage of the town becomes at least a pos- sible circumstance. The sewer can be carried along the centre ot the streets, at such a depth, and remoteness from the houses, as to preserve even their sunk stories intact. It must change its direc- tions by gentle curves ; receive its branches by such angles or bends as will serve to project their streams in a direction approaching that of the main current; and bo provided everywhere with a sufficient number of gully-holes, each protected by an efficient stench-tra]). A line of common draining tiles, placed along each side of the main conduit, would be valuable for the accessary drainage. With the progress of knowledge and refinement, when society begins to concern itself as much for life itself as for the means of living, a demand may arise for an extension of the plan of sewerage far beyond what appears to bo our present exigencies. This would ])robably be best answered by the construction of a second principal sewer, proceeding along the centre of Roxburgh and Bridge Streets, and having its vent into the river immediately below the bridge. In the mean-time, however, we ought not to neglect such easy alterations, in this division of the town, as that of widening the alterations of • drain at Floors Old Garden ; conducting the sewer at the Dispen- Sewerage, sary, enlarged in dimensions, down the lane in its vicinity, instead of in its present direction ; and altering the position of some of the gully-holes, and protecting the whole of them, whether in this, or in the remaining sewers, with proper air-trnps. Lastly, wherever any current of water reaches the surface, whether from the tops of the houses during rrdn, or from any other sources, it ought not to be allowed to diffuse itself over the road or itavoment, or remain stagnant in the closes, but should be conducted at once by a proper runner into the nearest channel. There is one feature in the present system of sewerage, and that an accidental one, which I should be unwilling to see abandoned. It consists in the discharge of the waste water from the town reser- voir, amounting to many thousand gallons daily, into the main east- ern sewer; the effect of which must bo to keep its impurities in a constant state of dilution, and of more rapid motion, or, in other terms, to change it into something less noisome than an extended cess-pool. In the new sewerage, an additional advantage might even be derived from this source. It ajipears that the cistern is placed at an elevation of about 9^ feet; that its contents are nearly (1500 gallons; and that it is provided with a waste-pipe two inches in diameter, communicating with the sewer, and which can bo opened at pleasure, to its full extent. We have hero, then, in addition to the more gradual percolation already mentioned, a powerful instru- ment for flushing aiid cleansing the sower, at short intervals, by suddenly emptying into its channel, Avith a forcible current, the
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