Tropical hygiene for Anglo-Indians and Indians / by Sir Pardey Lukis and R.J. Blackham.

  • Lukis, Pardey (Charles Pardey), Sir, 1857-1917.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tropical hygiene for Anglo-Indians and Indians / by Sir Pardey Lukis and R.J. Blackham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    amount of nuisance caused by night-soil increases in direct proportion to its bulk and to the amount of handling that is necessary. 2. The second flaw in this method is that it involves the use of dust-laden latrines. Bearing in mind what has been said in the first chapter on the subject of enteric fever ‘‘carriers,” it is obvious that the dry earth latrine renders every facility for these individuals to carry out their baleful function for spreading the disease. There are few medical officers who do not regard latrine infection as a most potent factor in the causation and spread of enteric fever and cholera in Indian communities. That these diseases are water-borne no one will deny : but every observer in the tropics has had to deal with epidemics where the water-supply was above suspicion, and where, after eliminating every possible known cause, he has been driven to believe that the attacks do not arise from a common origin, but are communi- cated from one individual to another. 2. The Wet System. As carried out until quite recently in India, there can be no doubt that hand removal of dejecta was fraught with great difficulty, and accompanied by nuisance, soil pollution, and danger to health at every step. But during the past few years the difficulty of carrying out the so-called dry-earth system and the necessity for preventing infection by flies and other insects has been fully realized and the system has been replaced in all Indian cantonments by the reception of feces in a fluid disinfectant. This procedure is known as the wet system of conservancy and it is directed towards the destruc- tion or inhibition of the growth of bacilli at the moment they leave the human subject. It is espe- cially directed against those bacilli of disease,