Report on the state of the City of York and other towns. / By James Smith, Esq., of Deanston.

  • James Smith
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the state of the City of York and other towns. / By James Smith, Esq., of Deanston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/80 page 11
    sweeping has been just completed. The thorough cleansing effected by water would diminish in an immense degree the continued exhalations of damp from the surface of the streets, after a period of rain, and would cause a great saving to the inhabitants, by the diminution of the quantity of mud carried into their dwellings by the feet of persons going in from the streets. In dry periods, the quantity of flying dust would be greatly diminished, and the expense of the ordinary watering of streets would be wholly saved. At the Huddersfield Infirmary, I found a marked instance of the in¬ fluence of bad sewerage in promoting fevers. A new house had been built some years ago for the infirmary : every pains were taken in the structure to provide for ventilation ; but the drainage was executed much on the usual plan: sewers were carried under the passages of the low flat, to receive the water from the water-closets, from the scullery, and from the baths, and the slop-closets of the upper floors. A drain was carried from the building at the back, towards the front, passing round one end of the building, and going along a lawn in front, to a sewer in a street about 60 to 70 yards distant. ^The structure of the drain was of the usual style of dry stone building for drains, without cement, and of course pervious to water and air. The sewer water was thereby per¬ mitted to pervade, to some extent, the adjoining soil, and the gas ge¬ nerated by the decaying matter in the drain, passed through the soil into the atmosphere, so that bad smells were continually fell in the house, and in the open air, all along the line of the drain ; and fever was seldom absent from the house. After some time, it occurred to the medical attendant that the effluvia from the drain must be the cause of the continued fever, and of a difficulty found in the cure of surgical cases. There being some old coal workings under the site of the building, it was suggested to make an opening into the workings, and to discharge the sewer water into them. This was accomplished, the bad smells were no more felt, and the fever ceased to prevail, whilst surgical cases proceeded generally in a satisfactory manner. REPORT on the CONDITION of the TOWN of LEEDS. By James Smith, Esq., of Deanston. Houses, 33,902 ; population, 168,000; deaths, 2*7 per cent.; ex- cees in number of deaths in 1841, 1169 ; average age of all who died, 23 years 4 months; of adults, 51 years 1 month; propor¬ tion of infant deaths under 5 years to total deaths, 46*9 per cent. The town of Leeds is situated on the right and left banks of the river Aire, a navigable river in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The town lies chiefly on a slope of considerable acclivity, running towards the south-east from the margin of the river. The substrata of the site of this part of the town are of the coal measures, and the surface covering is a tenacious clay of several feet in depth, the rock coming near the surface in some places. The general character of the subsoil is retentive. On the opposite side of the river, stretching towards the west, there is an
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