[Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, St Albans Urban Sanitary District & Rural Sanitary District.

  • St. Albans (England). Urban Sanitary District.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, St Albans Urban Sanitary District & Rural Sanitary District. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the public it is much to be desired that some efficient means of softening the water supplied to us should be adopted. The only drawback to the St. Albans water is its excessive hardness. The drainage of the City is carried out in a thorough and efficient manner, and the sewage is satisfactorily disposed of at the Sewage Farm. In connection with this subject I must refer again to the manholes. During last Summer they were extremely offensive, owing to the want of rain and the consequent difficulty in keeping the sewers sufficiently flushed. Some months ago a Committee of the Council was appointed to take the matter into consideration and report. I still think, as I mentioned in my Report for 1891, that the erection of a sufficient number of Holman’s Sewer gas Destructors in suitable situations would be an efficient means of ventilating the sewers and doing away with all nuisance. But if this is impracticable on account of the expense, I sincerely hope and trust that the Council will not be tempted to close the manholes and substitute ordinary shafts for the purpose of ventilation. The draught in such shafts would be altogether insufficient, and we should run a very serious risk of getting an accumulation of foul gases in the sewers, the increase of pressure from which would have a tendency to force our traps, and allow the sewer gas to enter our houses, a condition of things which would be infinitely worse and more dangerous than any disagreeable smells in the open air. Drs. Corfield and Louis Parkes in Stephenson and Murphy’s Treatise on Hygiene, recently published (the most exhaustive work on the subject in the Fmglish language), recommend that where the manholes give off an offensive smell that their action should be supplemented by constructing shafts, six inches or more in diameter, leading from the crown of the sewer to the sides of the road and thence up houses or buildings, clear from all windows and chimneys. These shafts would act principally as exits for foul air, while the manhole ventilators would become inlets, and nuisance to a great extent would be obviated. This is what I should recommend ; but I assure you that it would be worse than useless to attempt to ventilate your sewers by shafts alone. Erect supple¬ mental shafts and take care that the sewers are sufficiently