Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    694/896 (page 6)
    tenement, in its coffin of plaster, and the danger of sewer gas escaping from any leak is rendered doubly hazardous, because the imperfect joint cannot be easily discovered; not to mention the difficulty of ventilating these darkened closets with borrowed lights. The common stair is very often the common ventilating shaft; it often is itself central, and is very frequently itself unventilated. Such houses are now being erected for working men. Our work- men are the mainstay of the country. Good health is necessary to good work The extension of our tramways, the opening of our suburban railway will open up large tracts of ground, our work- ing classes will migrate to our outskirts. Let us see to the houses that are erected for their accommodation. A healthy home for the working man is one of the questions of the present day. I would ask you to visit Craigmillarr Castle if you wish to study the past wisdom of our architects 400 years ago. If you wish to know present opinion, look to Leeds, for example, on this matter. Let us not forget that Leeds is the town of one of our greatest sanitary reformers of the present day, and I am proud of the fact that Mr Teale is also one of the greatest authorities on surgery of the present day. Here is the Leeds bye-law: Every person who shall construct a water closet in a building shall con- struct it in such a position that one of its sides at the least shall be an external wall. The window of the closet shall be at least 2 feet by 1 foot, exclusive of the frame, and opening directly;into the external air. Specific laws are laid down with regard to an efficient constant system of ventilation of these closets. The Lord-Advocate says: Every water closet shall be placed in such a position that one of its sides shall be an external wall, with a window therein, containing an area of at least 6 super- ficial feet, one half of which shall be made to open. No pigeon- holes such as you will see in the court-yard of the building in which we are now met. But, gentlemen, you have not to go to Leeds ; you have the very same law at your hand in Leith, thanks to the sagacity of a former Provost of the Burgh, Dr Henderson. Proprietors and builders did not like it, but he persevered and gained his point, all honour to him for it. It is a humiliating