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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    Cost of Sewers. Almtcmont of N iiisauce.s. whole boily of iTOro water in tlie cistern. If we could add to this the sewer suggested from Roxburgh Street to the Bridge, and coiild conduct into it, in a similar manner, the surplius ■water from the copious springs near Lady Bonnet’s well, our town might boast a perfection in these points which could not easily be rivalled. To return to the expense of the form of sower which I have de- scribed, I learn that fire-clay tubes of the dimensions specified, or measuring 25 by IG inches, and 2 inches in thickness, can be ob- tained at Manchester for 8s. per yard ; sind that the cost there of laying them eight feet below the surface is 3s. per yard. At the Garnkirk Brick-works, in the vicinity of Glasgow, tubes, also of fire-clay, 18 inches in diameter, are made at 10s. a yard; but for knees, bonds, and branched pieces, one-half more is demanded. They are made of a variety of other sizes, adapted for lateral drain- age, down to as low as a two inch boro, which is sold at 9d. per yard. Common jiipe-tilos, of an egg-shape, 15 inches in length, and 2 inches boro, may bo obtained in some quarters as low as 18s. per thousand. There can be little doubt, that, in thJS locality, can ordinary built sewer, possessing an equal degree of efficiency with those constructed of clay-tubes, w'ould be from 30 to 40 per cent, more cx])cnsive. In recommending or enforcing the abatement or the remo^^al of nuisances in those instances which may appear to demand your in- terference, it seems to me that there is no single point more deserv- ing of your attention, than the degree of ventilation which the loca- lity, where the deleterious matters are situated, is capable of admit- ting ; because it is evidently rt^cording to the degree of concentration of tlie noxious emanations that their danger is to bo estimated. If wo know anything of the nature of these emanations, wo know that they are volatile poisons, diffusing themselves from their sources, of whatever descrij)tion, in all directions, and gradually dissipating them- selves wholly where there is free movement of the atmosphere. So ap- parent is this, that it seems imjjossible to consider them, at least in this individual respect, as governed by any other conditions than those w'hich attend tlie diffusion of all other influences emanating from a central point; or, in more technical language, that their intensity diminishes in the proportion that the squares of the distances in- crease. Thus, if we assign to their virulence, within a foot of the exhaling body, a force estimated as 10,000, at a distiince of ten feet it will already have diminished to 100, and at the distance of a hundred feet it wall have dwindled to as 1 only ; or, it wall be ten thousand times stronger at one foot than at a hundred. On tlie other hand, under the existence of circumstances limiting their diffusion, they necessarily accumulate, and acquire greater degrees of intensity at greater distances; though not without sometliing like the same ratio being constantly preserved. Hence our ordi- nary fever is seen rarely cither wdth the extreme of severity in
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