Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning.
- Manning, Frederick Norton, 1839-1903.
- Date:
- 1868
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report on lunatic asylums / by Fredc. Norton Manning. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![majorltv which are to be found in English asylums. The system in use may he under- stood oil reference to Appendix F, Fig. 2, copied from the Eeport of the Oovernment Hospital for the insane at Washington. Each closet has a free water supply, generally flowing on opening the door, is well trapped, and, in addition, has a special ventilating tube passiiig off between the pan and the trap. This tube is carried to a general shaft, which either communicates with the main chimney of the boiler furnace, near its base, or passes upward to the roof, and is warmed by means of a row of gas jets ; there is thus a strong upward current m the shaft, and co^lsequeutly a downward current through the pan of the closet. On placing a piece of lighted paper in the closet-])an in some of the American asylums, the Hame, and sometimes the paper, is drawn strongly downwards; and the closet thus, instead of contaminating the atmosphere, acts as a ventilator and purifier of the part of the house in which it is ])laced. In some institutions, as at Utica, the ventilating pipes, instead of being carried to the main chimney or a general shaft, pass at once separately to the roof; in these the draft is not so strong, but the closets are perfectly sweet, without any warming apparatus. At New Jersey, the trapping of the closets has been abolished, and the main sewer itself communicates by means of a shaft with the common chimney stack. In this asylum there is also a strong downward draught in each closet and urinal ; but should tlie system at any time get out of order, the smell from the sewer miglit penetrate by means of the closet to the entire asylum ; this accident is to some extent provided against by two special ventilating shafts to the sewers, which are carried up above the roof, and, fitted at the top with Archimedean seresv ventilators, which are so arranged as to revolve w ith the slightest breeze above, or the pressure of warm air from below, and lift or pump out the air from the shaft by means of a screw projecting into it. Second, the French or Tinette System—In this the closets and urinals are, as a rule, placed out of doors, either quite detached in the courts, or at the end of a block of building from which they can be entered. In each small building there are seats and urinals ; and below there are placed small tins which receive the t;ieces and water. These closets are generally arranged to open from the back ; and every morning or night the contents of the small tins are emptied into larger ones placed in a cart, and are then conveyed to some distance from the building, mixed with earth, and covered over for two, three, or four, years, when decomposition is more or less hnished, and the mixture of earth and l^eces, now^ solid, is used as a fertilizing compound for the land. There is no water supply to the closet. The advantages of this system are the ease with which the excreta unmixed with earth or water, and so, small in bulk, are removed ; its subsequent utilization, the compound of earth and excreta being of the highest value ; and the diminished cost of asylum construction, since the expensive aiTangement of pi|nng for Avater supply, and drains and sewers for subsequent removal, are not required. But these ad\ antages arc more than balanced by the constant stink Avhich proceeds from all French closets so arranged. In most French asylums, closets with water supply are used in the houses for the officers, and in some of the rooms for better class patients ; but sewers are not in use except at town asylums like St. Anne's, and there they are made to communicate with the town sewer. The usual arrangement, is that large tins are placed in the basement o\' the house, and form a very temporary cesspool, which receives excreta and water supply from the closet, and is removed every two or three days and rei)laced by others. At (luislain's Asylum, GThent, ji modification, and certainly an improvement on the French System is in use, but need not be described here. In some of the German asylums, as Hamburg and G-ottingen, a modification of the French system is employed. It is known as the Systeme d'Arcet, and is in many respects similar to the Pneumatic System of Ca])tain Liernur, which is now in use at the Hague and some other Continental cities.* In the Systeme d'Arcet, the closets are * In this system, small iron reservoirs are placed under the pavement of all principal «treot crossings, each reservoir being connected by means of small iron pipes with the privies of the houses next to It, 111 such a manner that no offensive gases can escape ; in other words, from every single nrivv a continuous air-tight passage leads into the next subterranean street reservoir, without the intervention of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21292450_0047.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
