[Report 1910] / Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow.

  • Glasgow (Scotland)
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1910] / Medical Officer of Health, Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    117/192 (page 109)
    district of Millerston is regarded as established on the evidence, and the further important statement is made, so far as I know for the first time, that on removing the covering from one of the manholes (from the context probably that opposite the house of the Rev. J. F. Miller) the drain was seen “ with a flow of dirty looking liquid, some of which was brought to the surface. “ It possessed a well-marked distillery odour. There was also a considerable “ deposit to the depth of several inches, a specimen of which was also taken,. “ and proved to contain a large amount of distillery refuse.” Similar characters were recognised in the effluent and deposit just at the point where the distillery pipe joins the sewer in Cumbernauld Road. An indication of the work undertaken prior to this time for the abatement of the nuisance is contained in the following further extract from Sir Henry Littlejohn’s report:— “ The expedients in the shape of tanks, &c., which have been adopted at the ” distillery to abate the nuisance have proved unavailing. I hold I am hardly “ warranted as your Inspector in suggesting remedies. This course might lead “ to protracted criticism, but short of shutting up the distillery or of causing “ its drainage to be carried along its natural shed, its drain should be “ ventilated before it joins the village drainage. No such ventilation exists at “ present. Hence the existence of the nuisance complained of. I observe that “ the Glasgow Authorities, to protect themselves so far, and to diminish the “ escape of smells from the drain, have erected a large ventilating shaft or “ chimney, but this only acts as a palliative, as complaints continue to be “ made along the line of the drain.* The impression prevailing as to the cause of the nuisance at this period would appear to have been that the distillery effluent in cooling as it ran along the sewer deposited solid material, and underwent some chemical change which gave rise to the smells complained of. It would then seem to have occurred to those who were dealing with the matter that some provision for more effectively cooling the effluent before discharge from the distillery tank system would tend to lessen the amount of deposit in the sewer, and consequently the source of the smells complained of, and the Manager of the distillery, writing to the Town-Clerk on 12th October, 1906, makes the following observations :— “ We are pushing on the alterations connected with the better settling of our “ spent wash and washings, and these are to be composed of two large vats and “ six square brick tanks—three of the latter in a row. We will discharge into “ the first one, and allow it to flow from same to the second, and then to the “ third, so as to allow time for settling and cooling, using the different sets “ alternately, whereby we expect to be able to pass the waste into the sewers “ much fresher and quicker, and give less time for any chance of decomposition “ and without any solid matter whatever. “ This it is impossible to do under our present system, and a good deal “ of solids find their way into the tank from which we discharge, and thereby “ settles to the bottom, and although cleaned out regularly, same gives us con- “ siderable trouble to deal with sediment in bottom of same.” It was about this time that my personal attention was directed to this question, and I have already in my report to the Board of 4th July last, pp. 3-4, quoted from a letter which I wrote to the Town-Clerk on 9th November, 1906, containing the opinion which I then held regarding the method of dealing with this nuisance. Subsequent to this a series of liming tanks were introduced, and in order to appreciate the part they occupy in the treatment of the effluent some description of the works themselves is necessary. I have visited them on several occasions either alone or in association with officials from both Authorities interested, and the following description is from * This appears to refer to a ventilating pipe quite at the beginning of the sewer and some yards beyond the point where the distillery pipe discharges into it. It is considerably beyond the city boundary.