Extracts from the annual report of the medical officer of the local government board for 1891-92. On manure nuisances.

  • Thorne, R. Thorne.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extracts from the annual report of the medical officer of the local government board for 1891-92. On manure nuisances. 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.

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    legal powers are adequate to secure these objects, and in what directions, if any, an extension of the law is from asanicary point of view to be desired, will be considered in this report. Notes of Insi^ections. Extent ot in- quiry. Local investiga- tions. Places whither manure is con- veyed by rail. Swanlev Junc- tion. In order to gain information on these points I have visited many of the places around London from which complaints of nuisance from manure traffic have been received, and have been in correspondence with local health officers as to others. I have conferred with medical officers, of health and other sanitary officials in the metropolis, and have received valuable information from them. I have visited under their guidance various places from which manure and refuse matters are Bent, such as dust-yards, markets, slaughter-houses, and cattle ships. I have also conferred with officials in other Government departments on certain points arising in the course of the inquiry out of matters within their province. My instructions were to confine my inspections in the first instance to places around London, and to apply for further instructions if I found it advisable to extend my inquiry to other places. This I have not thought it necessary to do, but some statements as to manure from other towns* will be found in the report. These are based partly on my own previous experience as medical inspector and medical officer of health, partly upon the reports of local medical officers of health. The following are notes of my visits to places, whither London manure is carried by rail. Swanley Junction, Kent.—This is a junction on the London, Chatham, and Dover Hailway, about 17 miles from London, at the point where the branch line to Sevenoaks and Maidstone joins the main line. It is in the district of the Dartford Rural Sanitary Authority. A consider- able number of houses have been erected in the immediate neighbour- hood of the railway station, and much building is still going on there. The goods station yard has therefore come to be situated in the middle of a populous locality; the nearest house is within 30 feet of a siding on which manure trucks were standing at the time of each of my visits. The yard roadway is in bad repair, and in a filthy state, being covered with manure droppings, and saturated with foul matters.f The manure traffic at Swanley Junction is not of recent date, but the bulk has very much increased of late years. The station-master informed me that the quantity of manure consigned to Swanley Junction (in- cluding May’s siding) was about 40,000 tons a year (other informants placed the amount as high as 60,000 tons); he never received less than 20 trucks a day; the greatest tonnage being received in winter, between November and May. Trucks loaded with manure for other places may also have to stand fora time at Swanley Junction before beino- sent on to their destination. The bulk of the manure is unloaded * Sneakine generally the manure sent out of London differs from that from the large inland manufacturing towns of the Midlands and North of England m the foliowin^respec special]y 0ffens;ve manure from Atlantic cattle ships. 2! The absence of human excrement. _ . . , 3. The less proportion of coal ashes, owing to the higher price of .uel, and the d“hct^hicror'ochbM7!)7“lki:rpool and Pljmoulh .tenia to resemble that « l.i*e tn.ffie in fresh ftui, lake, pl.ee from this st.tion. A jam factory adjoins the goods station.