Sewer manure. Statement of the course of investigation & results of experiments as to the means of removing the refuse of towns in water, and applying it as manure : with suggestions of further trial works (for voluntary adoption) of the practicability of applying sewer water as manures by subterranean channels; prepared for the consideration of the Committee of Works / by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C.B., with appendices.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sewer manure. Statement of the course of investigation & results of experiments as to the means of removing the refuse of towns in water, and applying it as manure : with suggestions of further trial works (for voluntary adoption) of the practicability of applying sewer water as manures by subterranean channels; prepared for the consideration of the Committee of Works / by Edwin Chadwick, Esq., C.B., with appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Printed for the consideration of the Commissioners on the JVorhs and the Sewage Manure Committees. pH c t v op o U t a n c to 11* 0. The result of a personal inspection of the chief cities and towns in Great Britain not long since, suggested the following observations: « Within the town we find the houses and streets filthy, the air foetid; disease, typhus, and other epidemics rife amongst the population ; bringing, in their train, destitution, and the need of pecuniary as well as medical relief; all mainly arising from the presence of the richest materials of production, the complete absence of which would, in a great measure, restore health, avert the recurrence of disease, and, if properly applied, would promote abundance, cheapen food, and increase the de¬ mand for beneficial labour. Outside the afflicted districts, and at a short distance from them, as in the adjacent rural districts, we find the aspect of the country poor and thinly clad with vegetation, except rushes and plants, favoured by a super¬ abundance of moisture—the crops meagre, the labouring agricultural population few, and afflicted with rheumatism and other maladies, arising from damp and an excess of water, which if removed, would relieve them from a cause of disease, the land from an impediment to production, and, if conveyed for the use of the town popu¬ lation, would give that population the element of which they stand in peculiar need as a means to relieve them from that which is their own cause of depression, and return it for use on the land as a means of the highest fertility. The fact of the existence of those evils, and that they are removable, is not more certain than that their removal would be attended by reductions of existing burthens, and might be rendered productive of general advantage if due means, guided by science, and applied by properly-qualified officers, be resorted to. The visible impressions which first suggested these observations were de¬ rived from spots in the rural districts in the immediate vicinity of Manchester and urban districts in Cheshire, from whence the candle-makers have hitherto obtained their best supplies of rushes. As compared with agricultural districts under high cultivation, the rural population close to several large and densely- populated manufacturing towns is remarkably thin and comparatively poor. A prize essay, in the Royal Agricultural Journal, shows that, for want of drainage, two-thirds of Cheshire is unfitted for sheep. The visible impressions derived from these local inquiries were confirmed on the inspection of the marsh (2) A