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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![fitted in the bulldiug. but no water i.s emjdoycd ; and ventilation hj means of a sjrdtciu which is very like that used in America, iri 'petto, U intended to f^erve instead of water in removing smell. The rough skett-h Appendix F, Fig. 3, may assist in explaining tlie principle. The excreta descend into a cloaca in the basement, from which a ventilating shaft passes to the ordinary chinniey of the ward oi* section. Fires are kept constantly alight, summer and winter, in one grate, whicli is used for minor or ward cookeiy ; and llie draught m the chimuev so caused serves to ventilate the cloaca and closet. The cloaca is cleaned out every two or three months ; and the major part of its contents are removed two or three times a week by a pneumatic process. A strong zinc or iron vessel, fixed on wheels, is filled wdth steam and allowed to cool; it is then attached by a connecting pipe to the cloaca, and on a cock being opened, the contents of the cloaca pass into the vacuum in the iron vessel, the cock is then again shut, and the iron vessel disconnected and drawn awav into the fields, where its contents, mixed witli earth, serve for agricultural purposes. The system is condemned strongly by both Dr. Reye, at Hamburg, and Dr. Ludwig Meyer, at Gottingen. The constant fire is found to be expensive, and the closets as might be expected, are extremely offensive. At Hildesheim the 8ysteme d'Arcet is in use with the addition of water supply, and is found to answer much better. The third system of sewage—that known as the Idicj Earth System—is in use in the aii'ing courts and farm buildings of one or two English Asylums, and has lately been fitted at the Special Asylum Flospital, Prestwich, and in some of the \vards of the Criminal Asyliun, Broadmoor, and found, as far as experience at present goes, to work admirably. At this latter institution the closets are placed in buildings Avhich jut from the corridors and admit of cross ventilation. The earth is thrown on the excreta by a mechanical arrangement Avorking from the seat. The divisions between the closets are of enamelled slate, and the vessels to receive the excreta are of zinc on wheels. AV^e have next to consider the arrangement of pipes leading—(a) from sinks, lava- tories, bath-rooms, kitchens, and laundries ; and (&) from urinals and closets, when these are in use. anv cc?spool. Tlie pipes are provided eacli one with a valve, to be worked from the side-walks of the street, so t}»at the communicat ion between each privy and a street reservoir can be established and cut off at vnW. These valves remain always hermeticallv closed, except during a short moment when the privy I'ontents are to be discharged into tlie street reservoir connected with it, which occurs during the night in tlie following manner :—A locomobile steam-engine, working an aii'-pump, is drawn near t he small sub- terraneai\ street reservoir, to exhaust the air out of it and out of the entire system of m:^in and braTich pipe?, up to the hermetically closed house A^alves, which are tlien, one after the other, opened and shut again, thus discharging the privy contents, including its gases, into the street reservoir. If the vacuum made in the reservoir and pipe system is complete or nearly so, the mechanical force of the atmospheric column rushing in, the moment a house valve is ojwn, equals that of some 30 hurricanes. Tn order to maintain this vacuum, while a lumiber of privy pipes are discharged one after another, the air-pumj) .standing near tlu^ reservoir is kept contiuanlly in motion, creating a constant draught, which causes all discharges to fly just into the reservoir and nowhere else, like so many shots from air-guns. The urine, exceeding tlie solidyaVfis about eight or nine times in volume, aft'ords suilicicnt moisture, not only to prevent the excrement from drying or caking, but also to keep the whole mass in so fiuid a state that removal i.s easy, unfailing, and complete, especially under the abovementione:! powerful blast operating upon it. All the privies and their ]iipcs will thus be every day tlioroughly cleaned of solids, fluids, and gases, and be filled with fresh air instead. After all the house valves have thus been successively opened and shut—an operation which practice has shown can hardly be done quick enough—the small reservoir itself is emptied bv pneumatic pressure into a hermetically closed waggoji reservoir attached as a sort of tender to the air- pump carriage. This done, the connecting pipes, by whicli the movable apparatus communicates with the stationary one under the pavement, are uncoupled, and the locomobile with its tender proceeds to the next reservoir, and then to another and another luitil the tender is filled. As the particular street where this will occur can by practice bo pretty accurately known beforehand, aiTangemcnts are made that, when arriving there, the locomobile meets an empty tcider drawn by two horses, which changes place with the full one, thus allowing the sewerage operation to go on without interrnption, the filled tenders being alway.s drawn away by the horses to a temporary depot, where they are decanted by direct hydraulic pressure into air and water tight barrels, wliich are then at once sent like any other goods, by rail or steamboat to the lands requiring the excellent fertilizer tlius coUectcd.—Oa Seivaje : By C. Krepp.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21292450_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
