The successful application of charcoal air-filters to the ventilation and disinfection of sewers : a letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, William Cubitt, M.P. / by John Stenhouse.

  • Stenhouse, John, 1809-1880.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The successful application of charcoal air-filters to the ventilation and disinfection of sewers : a letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, William Cubitt, M.P. / by John Stenhouse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    17/24 (page 15)
    APPENDIX. Letter from Dr. Letheby, Healtt Officer to tlie City of London, Lecturer on Chemistry and Medical Jurisprudence in the College of the London Hospital, &c. Guildhall, London, Dec. 11, 1860. Dear De. Stenhottse,— In reply to your question, as to the efBcacy of the Charcoal Ventilators which have heen put down iu the City of London for the Ventilation of the Sewers, I can give you a. satisfactory account as far as our experience has yet gone. As you are aware, in my Eeport on the Ventilation of Sewers, in Septemher, 1858, I recommended that an experiment should he tried on a large scale with the charcoal, as a means of destroying the noxious gases which, in their passage from the sewers into the puhlic way, were so constantly a source of annoyance and danger. Relying on the practical facts which you had already made puhlic, as to the powerful disinfecting action of charcoal, I had no hesitation in recommending its use to the Commissioners of Sewers of this City. Acting on this advice, their Engineer, Mr. Haywood, put a large district of the City under treatment. He selected the worst district in his jurisdiction, namely, the Eastern Division of the Metropolis ; a locahty densely populated and inhabited by a very poor class of persons. The area of the experiment is about fifty acres ; it has about seventeen himdred houses and 14,500 inhabitants. It is completely isolated, and every opening for ventilation has been