A brief narrative of the commencement and progress of the fetid irrigations and foul water pits around the city of Edinburgh : with proofs of their operation in creating nuisance, and in producing disease.

  • Ellis Daniel.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief narrative of the commencement and progress of the fetid irrigations and foul water pits around the city of Edinburgh : with proofs of their operation in creating nuisance, and in producing disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    lords it contributes nothing to the health of those who live near it. In the summer months, lie adds, the malaria is almost insufferable. (Papers, p. 64.) With respect to the herbage raised on these irrigated mea- dows, no horse or animal of any kind, says Mr. Glass, will eat a particle of the produce, either while growing, or when it is recently cut. When first put to eat it, the cattle have for some days an absolute loathing of it; but when at length they are brought to feed on it, it causes an immense flow of milk. Several cowfeeders, however, affirm, that it is inju- rious to the health of the cattle ; that some die from eating it, and none live beyond twelve or fifteen months. Yet it is calculated that the food which is annually raised in these meadows from November to April, supports probably no fewer than 3300 milch cows in Edinburgh, and 600 in Leith. Neither the milk afforded by these cows, nor butter made from it, will keep sweet the usual time, but soon putrifies ; and the milk itself is said to be unsuited to children.—(Pa- pers, p. 62.) Having stated the nature and extent of these noxious operations, more especially of those carried on to the east- ward of the city, we shall now give the substance of the evi- dence of several public officers and private individuals who have actually once lived, or do now reside, within reach of their baleful influence. In 1831, Dr. Barlow, surgeon of the regiment then in Piershill Barracks, in a Report to the Army Medical Depart- ment, describes this fetid irrigation in the immediate vicinity of the barracks as cohering several hundred acres. The smell proceeding from it at all times, especially in a mild evening, is, he says, most offensive; and, at times, actually percep- tible within the wards of the hospital. The late Dr. Hen- nen, a military surgeon of the highest reputation, in a topo- graphical report of Piershill Barracks, speaks of the summer of 1813 as having been extremely hot, rendering the exhala- tions from the morass near the barracks excessively offensive; and which became more so, from the operation of raking out