Sewage disposal. : Report of a Committee appointed by the President of the Local Government Board to inquire into the several modes of treating town sewage. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty.

  • Great Britain. Local Government Board.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sewage disposal. : Report of a Committee appointed by the President of the Local Government Board to inquire into the several modes of treating town sewage. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    xxi Sewage Irrigation proved not to be injurious to Health. There is no record of any sjDecial outbreak of disease at or near the sewage farm. The men working on the land and amongst the sewage are reported to be healthy, the men cutting the grass are healthy, and the cows fed upon the grass are also as healthy as other cows, producing wholesome milk; and with respect to tapeworm, the medical men who attend the Edinburgh hospitals do not find any exceptional excess of this disease amongst their cases; but, on the contrary, less than in other hospitals. The Craigentinny meadows were made the subject of an ex- haustive inquiry by the War Department during the time that Lord Macaulay was member for Edinburgh and Parliamentary Secretary for that department. Complaints were made that the proximity of the irrigated meadows and the effluvium from them produced disease in excess amongst soldiers quartered in the neigh- bouring barracks. Official inquiry was made by army medical officers, who took the returns of health and mortality for 20 years back from barracks situate in different parts of Great Britain where troops similar in numbers and performing similar duties had been quai'tcred, and these returns were tabulated, the results obtained i^roving that the barracks adjoining'the Edinburgh sewaged meadows had the lowest sick and death rate in the list, so that the allegations against the Craigentinny meadows fell to the ground.* It must not, however, be supposed that rough and ready sewage irrigation is advocated, as the evidence should only be taken as proving that the application to land, of putrid and crude sewage in the most gross form does not necessarily breed a local pestilence, though such mal-arrangements may produce an offensive nuisance which ought not to be continued. But we have no evidence that th ese Edinburgh meadows are a nuisance injurious to health; we are, however, satisfied that the work of irrigation may be carried on in a manner much more cleanly by a construction of settling- tanks to separate the solids and by the construction of permanent main-carriers, which could be regularly cleansed. The utilisation of sewage should, in all cases, be carried on in such manner as, in the vicinity of dwellings, to be the least offensive, although additional costs may, in some cases, be incurred to pay for more complete purification. Money Keturns from Sewage contingent on Local Conditions. The tabulated statements now made from experiments with sewage on a great scale show that money returns are contingent upon local peculiarities and management. Where the works necessary to treat sewage are simple in their construction and the treatment is unfettered by patents, there is least loss. Purification of sewage is not, however, effected by any use of chemicals which has been brought to our notice, the result m all cases having been * See also Appendix No. 5, pages 102, 103.