The general malaria of London, and the peculiar malaria of Pimlico, investigated, and the means of their economical removal ascertained / by Andrew Ure.

  • Andrew Ure
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The general malaria of London, and the peculiar malaria of Pimlico, investigated, and the means of their economical removal ascertained / by Andrew Ure. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    22/48 (page 18)
    able chemist. Even I, though professionally engaged to make the analysis of the contents of the sewer, and of course bound to vindicate the truth of my statements, as well as to rebut false accusations against my employers, the Commissioners and Surveyors, may be held to be unbiassed, for, at the end of three months, I have received no remuneration whatever for my labour. The Commissioners received from me four succesive reports; the fourth being final, in which I completed the chain of evidence and refuted all counter-statements. The great importance of the Prussic acid proof con- sists in its serving to trace the poisonous effluvia of the sewer to the gas-lime, from which alone it can proceed; because, though putrefaction of organic matters gives birth to sulphuretted hydrogen, it never generates any Prussic acid compound. Cyanogen may be produced from animal substances, but only by the action of fire. I never supposed that the presence of Prussic acid vapour could have had any considerable part in poisoning the men. I viewed and stated it, as the indissoluble link in the chain of causes for tracing the poison to its true source. The editor of a monthly journal mystified himself in this respect. He said, The supposition that some cyanogen compound existed in the mud or even in the liquid of the sewer, would be irrelevant. It must be shown that these compounds existed in such a form as to contaminate the atmosphere of the sewer. The critic discovers here, either an amazing ignorance of the point at